Secondary Sources of Data: Qualitative Methods | Sociology for GCSE/IGCSE - Year 11 PDF Download

Sources of Qualitative Secondary Data

Qualitative secondary data, expressed in words or visual formats rather than numerical data, is valuable for sociologists. Sources of pre-existing qualitative data include:

• Data from prior research conducted by other sociologists.
• Mass media outputs, such as newspaper articles and TV documentaries.
• Personal documents, including diaries, letters, and photographs.
• Online content, such as emails, social media posts, and blogs.
• Autobiographies and biographies.

Sociologists can access qualitative data, such as interview transcripts, from repositories like the UK Data Archive for their research. They can also share their own collected data with other researchers.

Evaluation of Using Existing Qualitative Data for Secondary Analysis

Advantages

• Analyzing pre-existing data saves time and resources compared to collecting new data.
• Written documents, like diaries or letters, can provide valuable insights into the experiences or events they describe.

Limitations

• Documents such as diaries or letters may be forged, casting doubt on their authenticity and accuracy.
• Descriptions in letters or autobiographies may reflect the writer’s biases or misinterpretations, affecting their reliability.

Content Analysis

Content analysis is a systematic method for analyzing qualitative secondary sources, such as personal documents, photographs, newspapers, and TV advertisements. For instance, feminist studies examining gender representation in TV advertisements might use content analysis as follows:

• The researcher creates predefined categories, such as “male advertising tech product” and “female advertising tech product.”
• The researcher reviews the advertisements, coding instances where males or females advertise tech products.
• After coding, the researcher tallies the frequency of male and female appearances in tech product advertisements.

Evaluation of Content Analysis

Advantages of Content Analysis:

• It produces quantitative data, enabling statistical comparisons to identify trends or changes over time.
• Using predefined categories or coding units allows the analysis to be replicated to verify reliability.

Limitations of Content Analysis:

• Developing coding units and analyzing sources can be time-consuming and labor-intensive.
• Subjective judgments in the process may result in data that lacks validity.