Metacognitive Aspects of Reading Comprehension: Studying Understanding in Legal Case Analysis

THE AUTHOR conducted a descriptive study of the reading strategies used by lawyers and law professors. In four experimental studies she then taught these comprehension strategies to law students, to test the theory that novices can be taught to use the reading strategies employed by experts and thus improve their reading comprehension. In the descriptive study, protocol analyses and questioning were used to identify the metacognitive strategies used by 10 legal experts, and the obstacles encountered by 10 novices, in reading legal cases. Experts used different strategies and distributed reading time differently than novices. A set of guidelines was developed based on the results of the first study. In succeeding experiments, law students were given these case analysis guidelines either with or without metacognitive strategy training. The influence of these strategies was evaluated several times during law school by testing the comprehension of 122 students who had received guidelines with self-control training, guidelines only, or no intervention. The strategies significantly improved comprehension, especially of beginning law students, and of those who received self-control training and practice.