Revision course

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Repetitorium (from Latin repetere : "repeat") means the repetition of knowledge and skills, mostly in order to pass an examination .

Form of instruction

target direction

As a form of teaching, a revision course is a condensed transfer of knowledge or repetition for students or other examinees, such as tax clerks. This method of preparing knowledge is very common in the field of law . According to a study published in October 2016, 86 percent of candidates attended a commercial revision course before their first legal exam. Legal refresher courses try to prepare students efficiently for the legal state exams in their lessons by quickly and intensively repeating and preparing the material. The teaching events are organized as face-to-face events. In order to avoid time-consuming queries, revision courses are not organized in small groups, but in events for 40 to 60 participants. Compared to university lectures, teaching in revision courses is usually more tightly structured, more school-based and largely dispenses with a scientific foundation, where this is not considered necessary by the revision courses for the exam. Online revision courses to prepare for the first state examination in law are now also widespread.

providers

In most cases, revision courses are offered by private organizers for a fee; in this respect, an extensive and highly competitive market has developed. There are several providers of such courses at almost every study location. The market leaders in Germany work according to a franchise-like model: the local providers are independent and the market leader provides teaching materials and brands. There are also revision courses for trainee lawyers to prepare for the second state examination in law .

For a number of years now, there have also been many universities that offer free exams preparation events themselves, in order to give students the opportunity to repeat the material and to prepare intensively for exams.

The average costs for a privately offered revision course are between 100 and 200 € per month, depending on the location and provider. This, as well as their pragmatic focus on exam requirements, also sets them apart from the transfer of knowledge at universities. A qualitatively better transfer of knowledge is not a matter of course, but in individual cases - as at universities - depends on the educational quality of the lecturers and the teaching material, although the motivation of the instructors - for economic reasons - to the satisfaction of the students they supervise may under certain circumstances can be higher than that of university lecturers . The courses usually run for a year - even over the university's existing semester break - some providers have designed half-year courses.

The largest nationwide providers of legal revision courses are Alpmann Schmidt with 42 and Hemmer with 41 locations, followed by Jura Intensiv with 22 and Akademie Kraatz with 18 locations.

criticism

Above all, the universities and student groups criticize the revision courses that this offer can also be understood as exploiting the students' fear of exams and that the university education ultimately enables better exam preparation.

Against this is countered by the commercial providers that it is hardly possible for students to pass the exam with just the material imparted in the university lectures, despite domestic hard work, because much more specialized knowledge and above all knowledge about the university was only insufficiently conveyed for the exam methodical ability to solve the exam is required. The inadequate pedagogical skills of lecturers at the university are also sometimes cited. Regardless of the opinions that universities and refresher courses have of one another, the success of these facilities with students is certain: According to estimates, around 90% of students attend a commercial course. However, the extent to which those students who have attended a revision course actually do better in the exam has not been proven. So far there are no reliable comparisons of the exam grades of participants with and without preparation with the help of a repetitor. In any case, it cannot be denied that in almost every exam date, students, both with and without preparation by a repeater, are represented in the entire range of grades - from the distinction to failing the exam - and the average has not improved in recent years.

The main reason for the continued unbroken popularity among students for the revision courses (in general and in particular in the mass subjects of business administration and law) is often seen in the fact that university lecturers at state universities in Germany receive a gratification on the one hand for good research and active publication activity received (recognition in the scientific community in their subject, expert reports from politics and business, calls for more attractively equipped or endowed chairs at other universities), that on the other hand there is no correspondingly weighty bonus for good teaching at the state scientific universities in Germany.

Recently, more and more books have appeared that want to show the possibilities of passing the legal exams without attending a revision course.

Alternatives to the classic revision course

As already noted, the number of so-called university revision courses is increasing. Almost every law faculty now offers its own revision course, which is organized by professors and academic staff and is usually free of charge for students.

The advantage of the university revision courses compared to the classic providers is usually that the lecturers of the university revision course are or could be the examiners for the upcoming state examination. This gives you a direct insight into the preferences of the respective examiner and the main areas that the examiner considers relevant.

Parallel to the emergence of university revision courses, more and more providers are establishing themselves who put individual support in the form of personal tutoring and exam preparation for students and exam candidates in the foreground of their offerings. Lecturers are usually trainee lawyers, doctoral students and young lawyers who convey the required material in personal units and can thus deal with personal problems in much more detail.

history

The history of legal revision courses goes back to the year 1794, when the general land law was introduced in Prussia . At numerous universities, professors refused to teach this new legal matter and instead limited themselves to traditional Roman law and the Saxon mirror . Prospective lawyers were thus forced into private revision courses, otherwise they would have been confronted with completely unknown laws in the state exams.

One of the most famous lecturers was the former Federal Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger , who worked as a private law teacher after passing his assessor exam in October 1934 until the beginning of 1945. Here Kiesinger - a member of the NSDAP since 1933 - showed a certain distance from the National Socialist leadership and taught the right of resistance even after the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , referring to Thomas Aquinas . In 1946 he became head of a legal revision course at the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg .

Literary genre

The term revision course also denotes a type of textbooks which are particularly suitable for repetition and, especially in the case of examinations , for exam preparation.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Matthias Kilian : Legal Repetitorien: Knowledge Transfer in the Shadow of State Legal Education. JuristenZeitung (JZ) 2016, 880–887.
  2. ↑ a b c Katrin Klette: Repetitions for law students: law closed , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of May 21, 2011.
  3. ↑ Law review courses in comparison. In: talentrocket.de (June 24, 2015, update of the data in January 2017 according to Alpmann Schmidt , Hemmer , Jura Intensiv Akademie Kraatz ).
  4. ↑ a b c Kölner Stadtanzeiger from June 14, 2011, law studies A business with fear, Link: https://www.ksta.de/12381272
  5. ↑ Spiegel dated September 18, 2001, The business with exam anxiety: Rescuing repeaters ?, Link: http://www.spiegel.de/lebenundlernen/uni/das-geschaeft-mit-der-pruefungsangst-rettende-repetitoren-a- 157862.html
  6. ↑ Badische Zeitung of July 31, 2009, legal scholars are declaring war on commercial repeaters, Link: http://www.badische-zeitung.de/freiburg/rechtswwissenschaftler-sagen-der-kommerzielle-repetitoren-den-kampf-an- -17780439.html
  7. ↑ FAZ of May 21, 2011, Repetitorien für Jurastudenten-recht-verschlossen-1642387.html, Link: http://www.faz.net/aktuell/rhein-main/wirtschaft/repetitorien-fuer-jurastudenten-recht-verschlossen-1642387.html
  8. ↑ cf. For example Osnarep - the legal revision course of the University of Osnabrück or LEO - the Leipzig Examens Offensive of the University of Leipzig ( Memento from February 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ↑ cf. e.g. tutoring for law studies and exam preparation
  10. ↑ Kurt Georg Kiesinger, biography based on Philipp Gassert: Kurt Georg Kiesinger 1904-1988 ( Memento from August 3, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ).