Secondary Analysis

Archived qualitative data are a rich source of research material that offer researchers, teachers, and learners opportunities to revisit, rework, and verify data—both their own and those created by others—and also to compare with other data materials. They provide opportunities to study the raw materials of recent or earlier research to gain both methodological and substantive insights. New data are typically expensive to collect, so using already collected sources can save costs as well as avoiding duplication of research effort and investment. But unlike secondary analysis of questionnaire data, the practice for qualitative data is far less well-established. What can older data offer the secondary analyst, and are there specific problems to overcome? This entry introduces some of the key issues.

Qualitative data are collected across a range of academic disciplines, often with varying techniques or emphasis. Typically, qualitative studies aim to capture lived experiences of the social world and the meanings people give these experiences. Often a range of methods and tools are utilized in the field and the kinds of data collected vary with the aims of the study and the nature of the sample. Data that could potentially be reused from a study include interviews, in-depth or unstructured; group discussions or focus groups; fieldwork diaries and observation notes; diaries; personal documents; and photographs. These data may also be created in a variety of formats: digital, paper (typed or hand-written), audio, video, and photographic.

To some extent the scope and format of data determine their potential for secondary analysis. A large collection of recorded and transcribed in-depth interviews with detailed fieldnotes may offer greater potential for reanalysis than a more focused set of semi-structured interviews. Audiovisual materials are possibly the least reexploited resources in the social sciences.

The ways that qualitative data can be reused are similar to those used for the secondary analysis of questionnaire data, yet there are different and more challenging theoretical, epistemological, methodological, ethical, and practical problems for the potential user to consider. While there is a well-established tradition in social science of reanalyzing quantitative data, for qualitative data this is not the case.