LLM Foundation Course Legal Education and Research Methodology 2019 Question Paper with Solutions

For full marks, cover: the difference between a topic and a problem; the steps of identification and then of formulation, kept separate because the question separates them; the criteria a formulated problem must satisfy; then the second limb on induction and deduction, which is shorter but must be answered; and a conclusion joining the two.

A research problem is a stated difficulty or unanswered question about which existing knowledge is unsatisfactory and which can be investigated with available methods. The distinction from a topic decides the answer. "Legal aid" is a topic. "What proportion of persons granted free legal services under section 12 of the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987, in a given district withdrew before the matter was decided, and why" is a problem, because it names a difficulty, identifies the material and admits of an answer that could come out either way.

The steps of identification come first.

4. Discuss it with those who know the field, that is the supervisor, practitioners and experienced researchers. A question nobody in the field regards as open is usually not open.
5. Make a preliminary survey of the material available, to find out whether the sources exist and can be reached. A problem for which no data can be obtained is not a problem the researcher can work on.

The steps of formulation follow, and they are a different exercise.

1. State the problem in a single interrogative sentence. If it cannot be put as one question, it is more than one problem.
2. Narrow the scope by fixing the population, the place and the period. Every unqualified problem is too large.
3. Define the key terms operationally, that is in terms of what will actually be observed or counted. "Effective legal aid" must become something measurable before anything can be measured.
4. State the objectives as a short list of what the study will establish.
5. Frame the hypothesis, or, in doctrinal and exploratory work, the research questions.

Deduction moves from a general rule to a particular conclusion. In law it takes the form of the syllogism: the rule is the major premise, the found fact the minor, and the conclusion follows necessarily. Its strengths are certainty, economy and testability. In research it supplies the hypothesis, by deducing from an accepted theory a consequence that ought to be observable. Its limits are that it produces nothing the premise did not contain, that it depends entirely on the soundness of the major premise, and that it cannot decide a case the rule does not reach.

Induction moves from particular instances to a general proposition. It is how a principle is stated from a line of decisions, and how a finding is stated from a body of data. The Supreme Court reasoned inductively in M.C. Mehta v. Union of India, (1987) 1 SCC 395, reviewing the authorities on strict liability and stating the wider rule of absolute liability for hazardous enterprise. Its strengths are that it generates new propositions and keeps law tied to fact; its weakness is that the conclusion is probable and never certain, and is only as good as the sample, which in legal research is usually reported cases.

The topic is default bail. The difficulty noticed on reading is that the Supreme Court has repeatedly described the right to default bail as indefeasible once the investigation period expires, and nobody has examined what the trial courts actually do on the day it expires. The problem stated is: in the court of a named Chief Judicial Magistrate, in matters instituted between two stated dates under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, in what proportion of cases in which the accused became entitled to default bail was the entitlement given effect to at the first hearing after the period expired, and what explains the cases in which it was not? The variables are then defined operationally, "given effect to" meaning an order releasing the accused on bail on that date, and the hypothesis follows: the entitlement is given effect to less often where the accused was unrepresented at that hearing than where the accused was represented.

Notice what the narrowing has achieved. The universe is defined so a sample can be drawn; the outcome is defined so two researchers would count the same events; the source of the data is identified so feasibility can be tested in advance; and the proposition could fail, which is what makes it research.

Is it a question? If it cannot be written as a single interrogative sentence it is more than one problem, and it should be split and one of them chosen.

Is the population named? Every unqualified problem is too large. "Aided litigants" becomes "applicants granted legal services by the District Legal Services Authority of a named district in a named year".

Are the terms operationally defined? Not "effective" but "disposed of on merits within eighteen months". Until the concepts are countable nothing can be tested.

Can the data be obtained, lawfully and in time? Court records, prisons and police stations need permissions, and personal data now attracts the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, read against Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, (2017) 10 SCC 1.

Is the answer unknown? This is settled by the literature review and by nothing else.

Could it come out either way? A problem whose answer is already contained in its wording is a conclusion.

The one test that disposes of a bad problem

Ask what finding would make the researcher abandon the proposition. If nothing comes readily to mind, the problem is not researchable, however interesting it is, and the study will produce a defence of a belief rather than a test of a claim. That single question catches the topic dressed as a question, the evaluative question no observation would settle, and the loaded question framed so that only one answer is respectable, and it catches all three before a single source has been collected.

Conclusion. Identifying a research problem is a matter of reading until a difficulty is recognised, and formulating it is a matter of reducing that difficulty to one answerable question with defined terms, a fixed population and honest limits. The two methods of reasoning run through both stages: induction produces the sense that there is a problem and the tentative principle behind it, deduction converts that principle into a prediction that the study can test. A problem formulated without that discipline yields a dissertation that describes a subject, and a subject is not a problem.