arbiter
JournalsPricingAccount

Psychological Distress at a Regional Australian Law School: Reporting on Law Students’ Experiences of Depression, Anxiety, and Stress

Claire Holland

Legal Education Review2024https://doi.org/10.53300/001c.118486article
ABDC C
Weight
0.57

What the paper says

Legal education in Australia is constantly evolving to meet the needs of law students and to prepare many of them for roles in the legal profession. Examples include changes to law degree structures, optional elective units, and subjects aimed at preparing law students to be ‘workplace ready’. Law students face challenging academic requirements and law school culture that can result in greater levels of psychological distress compared to the general population. Promoting law student wellbeing and responding to high student levels of psychological distress is a key area of focus for Australian Law Schools. This article explores existing law student wellbeing studies in Australia and reports findings from an empirical exploratory study investigating the levels of depression, anxiety, and stress (DASS) using the DASS21 survey instrument in law students at a regional Australian university, James Cook University. The results from this study support earlier studies at Australian universities that show law students experience higher levels of psychological distress symptoms compared to the general population, and it is an area of concern that requires ongoing attention. Results include an exploration of the impact of factors including type of degree being studied, campus location, year of study, gender, and time spent at law school.

1 citation

Open paper page →

Cite this paper

https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.53300/001c.118486

Or copy a formatted citation

@article{claire2024,
  title        = {{Psychological Distress at a Regional Australian Law School: Reporting on Law Students’ Experiences of Depression, Anxiety, and Stress}},
  author       = {Claire Holland},
  journal      = {Legal Education Review},
  year         = {2024},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.53300/001c.118486},
}

Paste directly into BibTeX, Zotero, or your reference manager.

Flag this paper

Psychological Distress at a Regional Australian Law School: Reporting on Law Students’ Experiences of Depression, Anxiety, and Stress

Flags are reviewed by the Arbiter methodology team within 5 business days.

Evidence weight

0.57

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.67 × 0.4 = 0.27
M · momentum0.53 × 0.15 = 0.08
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.