Abstract
Most social science research that reaches the courts is based on samples of one sort or another. Observing and counting the behavior of all the persons or things considered relevant for a particular study — in technical jargon, taking a census of the “universe” or “population” of units — is often an onerous if not impossible task. Sampling enables us to project findings from a more manageable group to the population from which it was drawn. If the basic rules of scientific sampling are observed, the courts accept such projections. The acceptance of sampling, however, is of fairly recent date. The road to it was long and rocky. In this chapter, we note some milestones along this road and describe the basic methodology of scientific sampling.
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© 1997 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Zeisel, H., Kaye, D. (1997). Sampling. In: Prove It with Figures. Statistics for Social Science and Public Policy. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1824-1_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1824-1_7
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