RESEARCH METHODS: SECONDARY DATA (P.38-

43)

•Secondary data is data which already exists. It has been

collected by someone other than the user.

•Sociologists use secondary data-material which has

already been produced to aid research.

•Official statistics can be very useful in sociological

research but must be treated with caution.. (What exactly

do they measure and how did they measure it?)

•The first step in any research project is finding out what

is already known via secondary data.

TYPES OF SECONDARY DATA

Quantitative secondary data: Official statistics (eg

Census, General Household Survey etc)

Qualitative secondary data: personal

documents, political letters, life

histories, autobiographies, official

documents, novels, mass media

(newspapers, magazines, television, radio)

OFFICIAL STATISTICS

Government/official bodies produces large amounts

of quantitative data (official statistics) For example:

No of births, deaths, marriages, divorces

Census information

Crime and unemployment rates

Social Trends

The General Household Survey

Examples of Official Statistics

OFFICIAL STATISTICS

Hard Statistics

Statistics which are not affected by decisions of those collecting them.

Few people missed out in the final count. (egbirths, deaths)

Soft Statistics

Process of how they are collected affects the results:

Eg.Crime rate may only include number of reported crimes

Eg. Levels of unemployment may include different groups at different times

OFFICIAL STATISTICS

Invaluable for sociologists

Include large samples, cover many areas of social life, expensive to carry out

Often well-planned and of high standard

Access easy (find them in libraries/internet)

Good for making comparisons over time

Don’t always measure what you want

Sometimes manipulated for political reasons (eg unemployment rates, crime rates etc)

When poverty rising, government sometimes stops collecting data

Embarrassing results may not be published

Cannot be sure that official statistics are always valid

While official statistics often tell you how much they don’t tell you why

Check out http://statistics.gov.uk

Strengths of official

statistics

Limitations of official

statistics

QUALITATIVE SECONDARY DATA

Personal documents such as diaries, letters, (even

household bills, wills, shopping lists)

Life histories and autobiographies

Official documents

Novels

Mass media including

newspapers, t.v.,radio, internet, magazines, film.)

HOW IS QUALITATIVE SECONDARY DATA USED?

Personal Documents

Used most often by sociologists

Need to assess if they were meant to be read by wider audience (therefore may be filtered for information, may give good impression of writer)

If not meant to be read by public, while more likely to be valid, they are difficult to get hold of

People sometimes asked to keep diaries to accompany research (interview or questionnaires)

Eg ‘Mass observational research’ 1930s (See p.42)

‘The Polish Peasant in Europe’ Thomas and Zaniecki

Examples of qualitative secondary data

LIFE HISTORIES AND AUTOBIOGRAPHIES

Life histories

People’s own accounts of their lives

Rely on memory therefore need to be validated through checking with other sources at time (newspapers etc)

Requested by researcher

Autobiographies

Not requested by researcher

Can give insight into social life at time

May be concerned with making good impression so may not provide frank , honest account of life

Memory may be faulty/incomplete

OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS

Governments produce documents (not just

statistical information) of many types

Some documents are made public after a number

of years (30-100 years) after which time they are no

longer deemed ‘sensitive’

Most documents are available to the public right

away (in UK Acts of Parliament, reports by

Comissions etc)

MASS MEDIA

Provides a vast amount of material of interest to sociologists

Can be used as part of preliminary research for a topic to be researched (eg watching documentary/ reading newspaper articles on a specific topic)

Researcher needs to be aware as material may be biased or focus on limited areas of topic.

Media can be studied as a topic itself (eg how ethnic minorities/women are shown in media or is the newspaper biased towards one political viewpoint)

Media can be analysed quantitatively (content analysis) See p.43

NOVELS

Novels, plays or short stories often explore social

issues which may be analysed by sociologists

They can portray life accurately at a particular time

and place.

Difficult for the researcher to separate social fact

from imagination

What might we learn from ‘Oliver’ by Charles

Dickens?/ ‘Emma’ by Jane Austin? ‘The Help’ by

Kathryn Stockett?

Choose a novel you have read. How might it be

useful to sociologists? What social issues does

it tackle? What does it tell you about the time

and place it was written on?

EXAM QUESTIONS: PRACTICE

What is meant by the term ‘personal documents? /2

What is meant by the term ‘secondary data’ /2

Describe one strength and one limitation of

secondary data. /4

Describe one strength and one limitation of using

personal documents in sociological research. /4

Describe two problems that might arise when using

historical documents in sociological research. /4

Describe two strengths and two limitations of using

official statistics in sociological research. /8