The LSSSE survey is designed to assess the extent to which students engage in a variety of educationally effective activities that contribute to valued outcomes. The results provide insights into student behaviors and law school environments that can be addressed almost immediately to enhance student learning and law school effectiveness.

This 2004 overview is divided into four major sections. First, we discuss the characteristics of participating law schools and students. In the second section we present selected findings, including descriptive information about the students who completed the survey. Then, we provide suggestions for interpreting the data presented in this report. Finally, we close with some ideas to consider when using your results for various purposes.

Affiliation

About one-third (31%) of the LSSSE institutions participating in the 2004 survey were public law schools, 40% were private law schools with a religious affiliation, and 29% were private schools without a religious affiliation.

Size

LSSSE 2004 schools ranged in size from 179 to 1492 students. Almost half of participating schools (45%) had less than 500 student respondents. Thirty-one percent had 500 to 900 respondents, and twenty-four percent had more than 900 respondents.

Table 1 shows the gender and race of law students responding to the LSSSE 2004. The group was evenly divided between men and women. More than four fifths were White.

More than forty percent of student reported grades of either A/A- (17%) or B+ (25%), while 29% reported mostly Bs. About one-third reported B- (15%), C+ (9%) or lower (5%) grades.

The least frequent activities are those where the percentage of students who responded “never” exceeded 35%, meaning that roughly one third or more of the students did not participate in these areas during the 2003-2004 academic year (Table 2).

• About nine out of ten (88%) students indicated that their school emphasized to a substantial degree (“very much” or “quite a bit”) spending significant amounts of time studying and on school work.
• Three-fourths (76%) of students indicated their school emphasized to a substantial degree the ethical practice of law.
• Almost one-half (48%) of students said their school did very little to help them cope with their non-school activities (family, work, etc.).
• One-third (33%) of students said their school did very little to provide the support they need to thrive socially.

• More than two-thirds (68%) of all students spend 20 or more hours per week studying. (Figure 1). About four in ten students (39%) spend 30 or more hours per week, and only 18% spend ten or less hours per week preparing for class.
• Half of all students (50%) work for pay although this number varies significantly by class level (Figure 2). More than half of working students (51%) spend at least 15 hours per week working for pay.
• Three-fifths of all students (60%) participate in one or more school-sponsored activities such as student organizations, journal, moot court, and student government; 15% devote more than 5 hours per week to such extra-curricular activities.
• About one-third (35%) of law students are caring for dependents living with them.
• Almost one-half (45%) of students spend at least one hour per week participating in community organizations.

• Students were most “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with library assistance (94%), computing technology (78%) and financial aid advising (70%).
• Students were most dissatisfied (“unsatisfactory” or “very unsatisfactory”) with job search help (51%), career counseling (49%), and personal counseling (43%).

Even though the differences reported are highly reliable and statistically significant, the actual magnitude of some item score differences may be trivial. That is, they may not represent a behavior or dimension of the law school student experience at your institution that is qualitatively different from that of students at other law schools. For this reason we also report the effect size associated with those item comparisons that are statistically significant. The effect size represents the magnitude of the discrepancy in the student or school behavior the item measures. When the effect size is large, or a pattern of small or moderate effect sizes exists, it’s likely that the quality of the student experience is appreciably different and, therefore, may be of practical as well as statistical significance with regard to the respective area of student engagement.

Finding large effect sizes is not that common in most areas of non-experimental educational and social science research. So, if your results include some medium or large effects, something may be going on that warrants immediate attention, especially if other empirical or anecdotal information corroborate the LSSSE data. Here are some general guidelines for determining the relative importance of a Cohen’s d effect size:

.20 is a small effect
.50 is a medium effect
.80 is a large effect

Look for Patterns in Item Differences

Also, don’t rely exclusively on statistical significance tests to identify areas that warrant attention. A consistent pattern of scoring above the mean, even though all the items may not reach statistical significance, may indicate your school is doing many of the right things in terms of good educational practice. At the same time, some schools have very high expectations for student engagement and may fall short of their own aspirations even though comparisons with other LSSSE schools are favorable.

There are two basic approaches that many schools use to think about their results. One or both may be appropriate, depending on your institution’s situation.

Normative Approach

The normative approach compares your students’ responses to those of students at the other 41 law schools in LSSSE 2004. This information is readily available from the Means Comparison Report. Breaking down the information into subgroups or engagement topics may be a way of stimulating faculty interest and discussion in the findings.

Criterion Approach

A second way of looking at your results is a criterion-referenced approach, whereby you compare your law school’s performance against a predetermined value or level that you and your colleagues deem appropriate for your students, given your school mission, size, curricular offerings, selectivity, demographics, and so forth.

1. Make sure faculty members and administrators understand and endorse the concept of student engagement. The value of student engagement results to improving the quality of legal education need to be convincingly explained to those faculty members less familiar with assessment in general and the engagement concept in particular.
2. Understand what student engagement data represent and use the results wisely. It takes time, perspective and experience to understand and make the best use of student engagement results.
3. Report student engagement results in a responsible way. We encourage schools to share their results in ways that lead to a better understanding of the student experience and promote law school improvement efforts.
4. Don’t allow the numbers to speak for themselves. Every number and comparison reported should be accompanied by an explanation and interpretation of what can and cannot be concluded from the results.
5. Examine the results from multiple perspectives. Use both normative and criterion-referenced approaches to challenge assumptions about student and school performance in the context of your own law school. It’s also wise to compare the engagement levels of specific student groups, such as 1Ls to 3Ls, men to women, different legal specialties, etc.
6. Link the results to other information about the student experience and complementary initiatives. The positive impact of student engagement results will be multiplied if the data can be made relevant to groups of faculty and staff working on different improvement efforts within your law school.
7. Don’t go it alone. Experts assert that the chances of successful innovation improve when teams are formed and law schools work together on topics of mutual interest.

We welcome your comments and feedback and look forward to working with you on interpreting and putting your LSSSE results to use.