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Unit Synopsis
Legal Research builds upon your existing legal research skills acquired in Introduction to Law to enhance your ability to locate, analyse and apply a range of legal and interdisciplinary sources in a range of contexts. In this unit, you will work on a research project that involves critical analysis of a contemporary legal issue and its potential solutions. You will also build a research portfolio in which you will apply your research skills to a range of authentic research exercises you are likely to face as a trainee or newly qualified lawyer and engage in self-reflection and peer review.
Details
| Level | Undergraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 2 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 4 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
Co-requisite: LAWS11057 Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework). |
| Class Timetable | View Unit Timetable |
| Residential School | No Residential School |
Unit Availabilities from Term 3 - 2021
Term 3 - 2021 Profile
Term 2 - 2022 Profile
Term 2 - 2023 Profile
Term 2 - 2024 Profile
Term 2 - 2025 Profile
Term 3 - 2025 Profile
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Assessment Tasks
| Assessment Task | Weighting |
|---|---|
| 1. Portfolio | 60% |
| 2. Written Assessment | 40% |
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).
Past Exams
All University policies are available on the Policy web site, however you may wish to directly view the following policies below.
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of policies are available on the Policy web site.
Term 2 - 2025 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 66.67% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 26.67% response rate.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Source: SUTE student feedback
I really enjoyed the unit and how there was a task each week to complete for the assessment. Overall the delivery of the unit was outstanding! It was engaging, interesting and informative.
Continue to deliver the unit content in an engaging, interesting and informative way.
This was continued.
Source: SUTE student feedback
I also found the final assignment to be very large for not many marks.
Review the weighting of the research portfolio and oral presentation components of Assessment 2.
This review has occurred for term 3. The portfolio now only covers weeks 7-11 rather than the entire unit.
Source: Students and markers
The portfolio assessment task is too large for 25%.
The total number of weeks covered by the portfolio task will be reduced significantly for term 3.
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Identify issues in ill-defined legal problems and conduct legal research to provide advice and recommendations using relevant and suitable sources.
- Design and complete a legal research project utilising suitable research methods to locate credible legal and interdisciplinary sources.
- Respond to complex and dynamic issues through critical analysis of the law and evaluating evidence and potential solutions.
- Communicate effectively both orally and in writing in a range of professional and academic contexts.
- Critically reflect on work and provide comprehensive feedback to others through a peer review process.
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| 1 - Portfolio | • | • | • | • | |
| 2 - Written Assessment | • | • | • | • | |
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| 1 - Communication | • | • | • | • | • |
| 2 - Problem Solving | • | • | • | ||
| 3 - Critical Thinking | • | • | • | ||
| 4 - Information Literacy | • | • | • | ||
| 5 - Team Work | • | ||||
| 6 - Information Technology Competence | • | • | • | ||
| 8 - Ethical practice | • | • | |||
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 10 | |
| 1 - Portfolio | • | • | • | • | • | • | |||||
| 2 - Written Assessment | • | • | • | • | • | ||||||