9e Ch8: Research About the Social Problems

Almost any type of data collected in a social science research project can be reanalyzed for a different purpose, so this chapter covers a lot!  On the other hand, primary data only become secondary data if they are available to others or for other than the original purposes, so the exercises for this chapter begin with a review of major sources of secondary data.  Be sure to review chapter highlights about the U.S. Census, other U.S. government sources, and the resources available from the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research.  The number of data sets available from research projects in other countries is expanding rapidly, and qualitative researchers are increasingly making their available to others online, so don’t forget about those possibilities as you answer the next questions.

These interactive exercises will also help you to review the advantages for researchers of using secondary data as well as the challenges they may confront when doing so. 

Some of the advantages are access to data on otherwise inaccessible settings, saving time and money, avoiding data collection problems, and making comparisons with other samples.  Can you recall or think of any others?

What are the challenges?  The inability to design exactly the best procedures for collecting data most suited to the secondary data analyst’s research question is certainly the most important.  An inability to pretest measures and refine data collection methods can also limit the fit of the research question to the research design.  Qualitative researchers face particular difficulties when using data collected by others. 

After your first time through the exercises, why don’t you review the chapter again to see if you’ve covered everything?