title: FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE: DESIGNING REFLECTIVE PRACTICE SOLUTIONS FOR LEGAL EDUCATION, A DESIGN SCIENCE RESEARCH APPROACH
Creators: name: McDonald, B
Publisher: name: Liverpool John Moores University
Year: 2026

description: In the modern regulatory landscape of legal practice, reflective practice is essential for aspiring solicitors, offering a systematic approach to examining experiences, beliefs, and actions. This thesis addresses the necessity of embedding reflective practice in legal education to meet professional competency requirements and enhance the educational experience for future solicitors. Despite regulatory requirements for solicitors to engage in reflective practice, there is a significant gap in systematic methodologies for teaching reflective practice in legal education that aligns with these standards and professional needs. The current literature lacks tailored frameworks and practical tools to effectively integrate reflective practice into the legal curriculum. This research aims to develop a comprehensive framework for teaching reflective practice to student solicitors. It seeks to design, build, and evaluate an effective tool that facilitates reflectivity, aligns with professional competencies, and integrates seamlessly into the legal education curriculum. Employing a Design Science Research (DSR) methodology, involving multiple cycles of design, build, and evaluation phases, this thesis utilizes a Kernel Theory Framework integrating Normalization Process Theory, Self Determination Theory, Novelty Categorization Theory and Automaticity Theory. Together this Kernel Theory Framework supports the pedagogical design of an Artifact to answer Leering's (2019) call for a form of law school course design that moves away from formulaic or tick-box reflection to a theoretically grounded, practical form of legal reflective practice suitable for tomorrow's legal professionals. Focusing on solicitors in England and Wales, this thesis contributes to knowledge by offering a new definition Legal Reflective Practice, sets out legal reflective 12 competencies, and presents a new model of reflection, the ViewFinderTM Model of Reflection. Combining design theory and kernel theory framework, a comprehensive Learning-Centred Design Framework is developed to support the design of the pedagogical Artifact. The Artifact presented is an online workbook featuring gamified structured legal reflective practice. The Artifact provides a method of teaching, learning, and assessment that promotes habitual reflective practice, enabling students to engage in reflective practice both intentionally and automatically. The thesis offers an innovative structured methodology for teaching reflective practice in legal education, bridging the gap between academic objectives and professional requirements. It introduces new theoretical frameworks and evaluation techniques, including the Design Evaluation Wheel, and proposes a third quality criterion in DSR methodology by adding the need for reflexivity in addition to relatability and rigour. These contributions extend the applicability of DSR in qualitative pedagogical research and promise long-term benefits for the legal profession by supporting a cohesive approach to professional learning and development.