‘Yes, no, maybe, can you repeat the question?’ : Is thinking like a lawyer different to thinking like a teacher?

Presentation at APLEC 2013. 
Kristoffer Greaves is researching how lawyers who teach lawyers’ skills in PLT engage in scholarly activities regarding their teaching work. This qualitative research involves cross-disciplinary exchanges between law, legal education, education theory and practice, sociology of law, and cultural theory. Data collected for the research includes 30+ hours semi-structured interviews with 35 PLT practitioners working with different PLT providers around Australia.
One question asked during the interviews - Is thinking like a lawyer different to thinking like a teacher? - elicited reflective and diverse responses and insights about how PLT practitioners reconcile ‘thinking like a lawyer’ with their teaching and mentoring work.
This presentation discusses the relevance and significance of these insights in the context of scholarship of teaching in PLT, and practical legal training’s ‘big picture’ purpose to improve protection of clients, protection of the administration of justice, and the assurance of the quality of legal services.

Errors in the identification of question types in investigative interviews of children

This study examined the incidence and nature of the errors made by trainee coders during their coding of question types in interviews in which children disclosed abuse. Three groups of trainees (online, postgraduate and police) studied the coding manual before practising their question coding. After this practice, participants were given two-page field transcripts to code in which children disclosed abuse. Their coding was assessed for accuracy; any errors were analysed thematically. The overall error rate was low, and police participants made the fewest errors. Analysis of the errors revealed four common misunderstandings: (1) the use of a ‘wh’ question always denotes a specific cued-recall question; (2) ‘Tell me’ always constitutes an open-ended question; (3) open-ended questions cannot include specific detail; and (4) specific questions cannot elicit elaborate responses. An analysis of coding accuracy in the one group who were able to practise question coding over time revealed that practice was essential for trainees to maintain their accuracy. Those who did not practise decreased in coding accuracy. This research shows that trainees need more than a coding manual; they must demonstrate their understanding of question codes through practice training tasks. Misunderstandings about questions need to be elicited and corrected so that accurate codes are used in future tasks.

Question: do we need to change the racial discrimination laws?

In light of the Bolt v. Eatock case before the Racial Discrimination Commission, this article discusses calls for Australia's racial vilification laws to be amended to exclude humiliation and embarrassment as grounds for a finding of vilification. 

An investigation of the question-types teachers use to elicit information from children

Background: Teachers are required to report suspected child abuse in many parts of the world, but there is a paucity of research characterising how they question children about wrongdoing. Aims: Because children often speak to multiple people before arriving at a forensic interview it is critical to understand how untrained teachers question children. Sample and Methods: Teachers (n = 47) completed a mock interview, written quiz, and rated their expected performance. Results: In both the interview and quiz, teachers asked few open and many leading questions. Yet, they asked proportionally more open and fewer leading questions on the quiz than during the interview, demonstrating an implicit awareness of good questioning. Holding a higher education level degree was associated with asking fewer questions overall, and fewer leading questions, during the mock interview. Higher perceptions of performance after the mock interview were associated with having asked more open and more specific questions. Conclusions: Overall, teachers asked fewer open questions than desired but also demonstrated some awareness of good interviewing skill. We review the teachers' performance by highlighting the positive aspects of their interviewing skills, identifying areas for improvement, and making suggestions for enhancing teachers' abilities to question children about wrongdoing. Copyright © Australian Psychological Society Ltd 2014.

Migration exhibitions and the question of identity: reflections on the history of the representation of migration in Australian museums, 1986-2011

Museums and Migration explores the ways in which museum spaces - local, regional, national - have engaged with the history of migration, including internal migration, emigration and immigration.

‘Moral luck’ and the question of autonomy, choice, and control in end-of-life decision making

It is commonly assumed that, in the realm of ethical decision making at the end-of-life, ‘luck’ and ‘risk’ do not intrude. Nonetheless ‘moral luck’ (where happenstance makes a moral difference) does intrude and can have an unanticipated impact on the ultimate moral outcomes of end-of-life care. In the interests of upholding the ethical standards of end-of-life care, healthcare providers have increasingly relied on ethical principlism as a rational decision-guiding frame in the sincere belief that such an approach will enable patient selfdetermination and control over treatment decisions when needing end-of-life care. Due to contextual variables and associated uncertainties in end-of-life care, however, the intended moral outcomes of appeals to commonly accepted ethical principles (in particular the principle of autonomy) are not always realized. What is not always appreciated is that whether ‘good’ or ‘bad’ moral outcomes are achieved can be as much a matter of chance as of choice. This essay explores the relevance and possible implications of moral luck in end-of-life decision making and care. A key conclusion of the paper is that the notion of moral luck needs to be taken seriously in end-of-life care contexts since it can have an unanticipated impact on the outcomes of the decisions that are made and thereby on the moral interests of patients facing the end of their lives.