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Strategies of Research Design in the Legal Impact Study: The Control of Plausible Rival Hypotheses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Richard Lempert
Richard Lempert*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
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A legal impact study represents an attempt to ascertain how a particular law affects the conduct and attitudes of those individuals, groups or other relevant units located in jurisdictions where that law is in force. By its very nature such a study involves one essential comparison; the comparison between actual behavior patterns in jurisdictions having the law in question and the behavior patterns which would have existed in those same jurisdictions had the law in question never been enacted. Since this comparison is one which by definition cannot actually be made, the problem for the legal impact theorist is how to estimate best what the behavior patterns would have been in a certain jurisdiction had the law in question never existed there. The legislator or court seeking to determine the actual or probable effects of a law faces a similar problem.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , November 1966 , pp. 111 - 132
Copyright
Copyright © 1966 by the Law and Society Association

Footnotes

Author's note: This work is supported by a grant from the Cooperative Research Branch of the Social Security Administration and the Welfare Administration under SSA Grant No. 201, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Washington, D.C., and from funds of the Public Affairs Committee of Oberlin College under a Ford Foundation Grant. Research facilities were provided by the Social Science Research Institute, University of Hawaii. The study, Legal Interventions, Social Mobility and Dependency — A Study of Public Assistance in Housing, is being directed by Kiyoshi Ikeda, Oberlin College, and Douglas S. Yamamura, University of Hawaii. Mr. Lempert is a Research Associate and has worked as Legal Archivist and Interview Crew Chief.

The writer would like to express his special thanks to Professors Kiyoshi Ikeda, Donald T. Campbell and Harry V. Ball for the general encouragment they have given him and for their helpful criticism of earlier drafts of this paper.

References

1. For information pertaining to this study see: K. Ikeda, H. V. Ball & D. Yamamura, Legal Interventions, Social Mobility, and Dependence: A Study of Public Assistance in Housing for Low Income Families, paper presented at the 1964 American Sociological Association meeting; K. Ikeda, H. V. Ball, D. Yamamura & R. Lempert, Regulatory Norms and Occupational Conduct Among Low Income Households: A Study of Public Assistance in Housing, paper presented at the 1966 American Sociological Association meeting.

2. The sample was drawn from two complete cohorts of public housing applicants, those who applied between 1953 and 1957 and those who applied between 1960 and 1964.

3. K. Ikeda, H. V. Ball & D. Yamamura, supra, note 1, at Table 2, Appendix.

4. For a general discussion of material which can be gleaned from the running record see: E. J. Webb, D. T. Campbell, R. D. Schwartz, & L. Sechrest, Unobtrusive Measures: Nonreactive Research in the Social Sciences, (1966). See especially, chs. 3 & 4.

5. K. Ikeda, H. V. Ball, & D. Yamamura, supra note 1, at Tables 3–5, Appendix.

6. Actually around 1,000 interviews were administered because in about 350 cases both the husband and wife were interviewed for each family.

7. For a simpler study using just interview data see: G. F. Break, Income Taxes and Incentives to Work, 57 Am. Econ. Rev. 529 (1957). For a less complex study relying mainly on questionnaire data see: S. S. Nagel, Testing the Effects of Excluding Illegally Seized Evidence, 1965 Wis. L. Rev. 283.

8. Quasi-experimental studies, as distinguished from experimental studies, occur when the experimenter is unable to achieve full control over relevant variables. D. T. Campbell & J. C. Stanley, Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research on Teaching, in Handbook of Research on Teaching 204 (N. L. Gage ed. 1963). Experimental research encompasses “that portion of research in which variables are manipulated and their effects upon other variables observed.” Id. at 171. On experimentation, see generally A. Kaplan, The Conduct of Inquiry 126–70 (1964).

9. Id. at 176.

10. Id. at 175.

11. Research which is scientific in its systematic approach to the data but which lacks the controls necessary for either quasi-experimental or experimental studies.

12. D. T. Campbell, Factors Relevant to the Validity of Experiments in Social Settings, 54 Psych. Bull. 297–312 (1957).

13. “[T]he specific events [other than the introduction of the law] between the first and second measurements.” D. T. Campbell & J. C. Stanley, supra note 8, at 175.

14. “Processes within the respondents operating as a function of the passage of time” per se (not specific to particular events.) Ibid.

15. “The effects of taking a test upon the scores of the second testing.” Ibid.

16. “Changes in the calibration of a measuring instrument or changes in the observers or scores used may produce changes in the obtained measurement.” Ibid.

17. “[Operates] where groups have been selected on the basis of their extreme scores.” Ibid.

18. “Biases resulting in differential selection of respondents for the comparison group.” Ibid.

19. “Differential loss of respondents from the comparison groups.” Ibid.

20. “[The danger arises] in certain of the multiple-group quasi-experimental designs . . ., [that] such an interaction effect might be mistaken for the effect of the experimental variable.” Ibid.

21. Hawaii Session Laws 1964, Act 22. For a theoretical discussion of this program and of general public housing interventions see: K. Ikeda, H. V. Ball & D. Yamamura, Legal Interventions, supra, note 1.

22. A. Rose, Theory and Method in the Social Science (1954),

23. A. Rose, Individualism and Social Responsibility 2 Eur. J. Soc. 163–69 (1961).

24. H.V. Ball, Social Structure and Rent Control Violations, 65 Am. J. Soc. 598–604 (1960).

25. Campbell and Stanley refer to external validity as “representativeness.” D. T. Campbell & J. C. Stanley, supra note 8, at 176.

26. Design numbers as employed by Campbell and Stanley have been retained. For a more detailed discussion of these designs and of statistical methods which can be used in connection with them, the reader is referred to the Campbell and Stanley article. D. T. Campbell & J. C. Stanley, supra, note 8, at 175–176.

27. D. T. Campbell & Ross, Use of Time Series in Evaluating Social Change (to be published).

28. See, e.g., E. Durkheim, Deux Lois de L'Evolution Penale, 4 L'Annee Sociologique 65 (1899–1900).

29. A non-reactive pretest occurs when the pretest does not affect the subjects under study, thereby avoiding an effect on subsequent observations.

30. D. T. Campbell & K. N. Clayton, Avoiding Regression Effects in Panel Studies of Communication Impact, 3 Stub. Pub. Commun. 99–118 (1961).

31. For a discussion of what factors must be considered in conjunction with the formal rule structures and of possible approaches to the study of formal organizations, see P. Blau, Formal Organization: Dimensions of Analysis, 63 Am. J. Soc. 58 (1957).