Continuous assessment and legal education: how might a programme-level continuous assessment strategy be implemented and how might it affect student motivation?

Student motivation is an important issue in legal education and directly relates to student confidence, performance and persistence. Research into the efficacy of continuous assessment in higher education has shown that continuous assessment can foster greater student motivation and enjoyment. However, this research has tended to examine continuous assessment strategies for individual modules. By contrast, Essex Law School implemented a continuous assessment strategy involving a programme of assessed online multiple-choice quizzes that was adopted for most of the School’s undergraduate law modules. This paper draws on self-determination theory to show how this continuous assessment strategy had positive effects on perceived competence among undergraduate law students and helped them feel both in control of their learning experience and better equipped to make positive choices about that experience. This study thus suggests that programme-level continuous assessment can be used effectively to address motivation, engagement and wellbeing challenges in legal education.