Unit 3: Tools and Techniques of Data Collection
3.1 Census and Sampling
Census = the complete enumeration — every unit of the population studied (the national census’s own model: the every-ten-years count; the courts’ full docket audit). Strength: totality (no inference risk). Limits: the cost, the time, the organisation — rarely feasible in legal research. Sampling = the representative part for the whole: the probability samples (the simple random — the lottery; the systematic — every kth unit; the stratified — the population’s layers sampled proportionately: the judges-by-bench, the prisoners-by-offence; the cluster — the geography’s units: the courts-by-district) and the non-probability samples (the convenience — the accessible; the purposive/judgement — the expert selection: the key informants; the quota and the snowball — the referral chain of hidden populations: the trafficked, the released prisoners). The exam’s vocabulary: population, sample, sampling frame, sampling error, representativeness; the sample-size’s logic (the precision-vs-cost trade); the snowball’s ethics (hidden populations, sensitive data).
3.2 Interview
The technique: the direct conversation for data — the structured (the fixed questionnaire, verbatim — the survey’s oral twin), the semi-structured (the guide’s questions with the conversation’s freedom — the socio-legal standard), the unstructured (the open exploration — the oral-history mode), and the focused interview (the shared-experience group). The skills: the rapport, the questioning’s craft (open before closed; no leading; the funnel), the probing, the recording (the consent’s record — audio’s permission), the field notes. In legal research: the judges, the lawyers, the police, the prisoners, the victims, the court staff — the actors’ own accounts of the law’s working. The ethics: informed consent, confidentiality, the vulnerable interviewee’s protections, the exit-right.
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