1. 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.

2. 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)

3. 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

4. Examples of Official Statistics

5. OFFICIAL STATISTICS
Hard Statistics
 Statistics which are not
affected by decisions of
those collecting them.
 Few people missed out
in the final count. (eg
births, 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

6. 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 Embarrassing results may not be
published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

7. 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.)

8. 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

9. Examples of qualitative secondary data

10. 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

11. 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)

12. 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

13. 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?

14. 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