Secondary Sources of Data: Qualitative Methods (AQA GCSE Sociology)
Revision Note
Written by: Raj Bonsor
Reviewed by: Cara Head
Sources of qualitative secondary data
Qualitative secondary data presented in words or visual form rather than numbers may be useful to sociologists
Sources of pre-existing qualitative data include:
data from existing research studies carried out by other sociologists
mass media products like newspaper articles and television documentaries
personal documents such as diaries, letters and photographs
material produced via the internet, such as email, social media networks and blogs
autobiographies and biographies
Sociologists can access qualitative data in the form of transcriptions from in-depth interviews online from the UK Data Archive and use it for their own research
They can also share with other researchers the data that they have collected from their own studies
Evaluation of using existing qualitative data for secondary analysis
Advantages | Limitations |
|---|---|
Researchers can save time and money by analysing pre-existing data rather than collecting data from scratch. | Written documents such as diaries or letters may not be genuine but forged. If they are, then the contents may not be true. |
Written documents may provide useful background information about the experiences or events they refer to | The experiences or events described in letters or autobiographies may have been misinterpreted or subject to the writer's prejudices. |
Content analysis
Content analysis is a way of dealing systematically with qualitative secondary sources, such as analysing the contents of personal documents, photographs newspapers and television advertisements
For example, feminist studies of the representation of gender in television advertisements might use content analysis in the following way:
The researcher constructs a set of predetermined categories, for example, 'male advertising tech product/female advertising tech product
The researcher then works through the advertisements, coding all sections that show a male or female advertising a tech product
Once the contents have been coded, the researcher counts up the number of times a female or male advertises a tech product
Evaluation of content analysis
Advantages of content analysis | Limitations of content analysis |
|---|---|
It generates quantitative data, so the contents of different products can be compared statistically to identify trends or changes over time. | It can be time-consuming and labour-intensive when developing coding units and analysing the secondary source. |
The researcher works with a set of categories or coding units so the analysis can be replicated to check for reliability. | It involves subjective judgements, which may create data that lacks validity. |
Examiner Tips and Tricks
Ensure that you learn the advantages and disadvantages of all the different research methods and sampling techniques, as well as ethical issues.
To achieve top marks in the research methods questions, you must use appropriate sociological terminology in your answer and relate your answer to the investigation presented to you in the question.
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