Libby Bishop

A Reflexive Account of Reusing Qualitative Data: Beyond Primary/Secondary Dualism

Though secondary analysis of qualitative data is becoming more prevalent, relatively few methodological studies exist that provide reflection on the actual, not idealised, process. This paper offers a reflexive account of secondary analysis focused on the topic of convenience food and choice. Several phases of the research process are examined: understanding context, defining a subject area, finding data and sampling, later sampling and topic refinement, and relating to transcripts. For each phase, I explore if reusing data is different from using it in the first instance, and if so, how those differences manifest themselves. The paper closes with reflections on the differences, similarities, and relationships between primary and secondary analysis of qualitative data. Although differences exist regarding the researcher-respondent relationship, primary and secondary analyses are more alike than not. The suitability of each approach can only be assessed in light of a particular research question.

Using archived qualitative data for teaching: practical and ethical considerations

This paper will examine the practicalities and the ethics of using archived qualitative data for teaching. Practicalities focus on the basic infrastructure and resources: where data can be obtained, what supporting contextual materials exist, and the provision of customised teaching resources ready for classroom use. The remainder of the paper addresses the ethics of reusing data, first with an overview and then with a closer look at ethical challenges in reusing data for teaching. A symmetry in the roles of researchers and teachers frames this discussion. Researchers collect data from participants for deposit to an archive; teachers access data from an archive on behalf of their students. Both researchers and teachers are acting on behalf of others in their relationships with the archive, and this mediation has ethical consequences. The reuse debate has largely focused on risks to participants, notably possible violations of their privacy, but reusing data for teaching foregrounds new issues: the potential benefit for data to enhance learning, equitable access to data and autonomy of both research participants and students, thus enriching the ethical debate about archiving data.

Revisiting Qualitative Data Reuse: A Decade On

Secondary analysis of qualitative data entails reusing data created from previous research projects for new purposes. Reuse provides an opportunity to study the raw materials of past research projects to gain methodological and substantive insights. In the past decade, use of the approach has grown rapidly in the United Kingdom to become sufficiently accepted that it must now be regarded as mainstream. Several factors explain this growth: the open data movement, research funders’ and publishers’ policies supporting data sharing, and researchers seeing benefits from sharing resources, including data. Another factor enabling qualitative data reuse has been improved services and infrastructure that facilitate access to thousands of data collections. The UK Data Service is an example of a well-established facility; more recent has been the proliferation of repositories being established within universities. This article will provide evidence of the growth of data reuse in the United Kingdom and in Finland by presenting both data and case studies of reuse that illustrate the breadth and diversity of this maturing research method. We use two distinct data sources that quantify the scale, types, and trends of reuse of qualitative data: (a) downloads of archived data collections held at data repositories and (b) publication citations. Although the focus of this article is on the United Kingdom, some discussion of the international environment is provided, together with data and examples of reuse at the Finnish Social Science Data Archive. The conclusion summarizes the major findings, including some conjectures regarding what makes qualitative data attractive for reuse and sharing.

Editorial for Special Edition, Digital Representations

This collection of papers comprises five contributions with a social science or social historical perspective that present the current state of the art in the field of re-using and publishing digital qualitative data. The articles address the use of digital sources in qualitative research in both research and teaching, charting types of use over the past 10 years, and looking forward to emerging practices and methods, such as the promise and potential that technological innovations can bring to enable new ways of presenting and publishing qualitative research. Some of the papers make use of direct linking allowing the reader to explore “live” data sources, offering an opportunity to see how research transparency might be operationalized in the presentation of qualitative findings and reporting. The papers reference major contributions to the literature and present stimulating debates on the topic and build on previously well-cited publications in which the editors have presented state-of-the-art articles on secondary analysis of qualitative data.