Background of the Study
Undeniably, the shift from traditional pedagogies to e-pedagogies was necessary to ensure the continuity of learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Gamification, as an alternative teaching tool, is not new and has been gaining particular attention in the past decade in the field of education (Hallifax et al., 2019; Majuri et al., 2018). Furthermore, gamification as a pedagogic tool had shown its potential in enabling students gain affective and cognitive skills as well as impacting performances, attitudes and behaviors (Majuri et al., 2018; Manzano-León, 2021; Mohamad et al., 2021; Lane, 2021; Sailer & Homner, 2020; Turner et al., 2019). Alongside with other disciplines and in order to answer employment and societal paradigm shifts, education providers moved towards 21st century skills development with an emerging need for digital skills (Latorre-Cosculluela et al., 2020; Van Laar et al., 2020).
Law schools are renowned for developing graduates with ethics, critical thinking, negotiation argumentation, leadership, problem solving and research skills (Giddings & Weinberg, 2020; Kathrani, 2020). However, content and organization of the profession evolve and change rapidly impacting the preparedness and acclimatizing of the students to the modern functions of the profession (Giddings & Weinberg, 2020). Consequently, education providers need to look at pedagogic approaches which allow for more experientiality and immersion during the learning process.
In Malaysia, there are approximately 20 universities and colleges offering law programmes and there are concerns whether legal education offered at higher learning institutes are in line with the 4th Industrial Revolution to reflect the demands of the 21st century skills (Amirnuddin et al., 2020). This study directs the focus on law education and students from a private university in Malaysia studying Bachelor of Laws programme. Recognized by the Legal Profession Qualifying Board, Malaysia, the Bachelor of Laws programme enables the students to become inter alia, but not limited to, advocate and solicitor, legal advisor, legal writer, legal scholar, forensic or criminal investigator. During the three years of studies, the students would need to pass all 21 core modules and 5 elective modules, and undergo a 6-week internship to enable them to fulfil the required programme learning objectives. In addition, the programme had been designed to develop and assess key capabilities during the studies with an emphasis on discipline specific knowledge, problem solving, critical and creative thinking, communication, lifelong learning, personal and social competencies, entrepreneurialism and global perspective. The pedagogies employed vary from authentic to blended approaches and the Bachelor of Laws programme introduced gamification since 2019.