Using Science to Build Better Learners: One School’s Successful Efforts to Raise its Bar Passage Rates in an Era of Decline

University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law

What measures can law schools take to improve student performance and bar passage? The answer is not what you think. Recent developments in the science of learning show that most law students learn wrong. In fact, ineffective methods of learning pervade all levels of education. We now know that widely accepted learning and study strategies that were once considered gospel are actually deeply flawed. Yet we still embrace and propagate those myths.

Meanwhile, bar passage rates and law student performance are plummeting. Everyone in legal education is asking, “What can we do?” But, “What can we do?” is the wrong question. The right question is to ask how students can capitalize on the science of learning to be more effective learners.