What is qualitative secondary analysis? How can it be most effectively applied in social research? This timely and accomplished book offers readers a well informed, reliable guide to all aspects of qualitative secondary analysis. The book: Defines secondary analysis. Distinguishes between quantitative and qualitative secondary analysis. Maps the main types of qualitative secondary analysis. Covers the key ethical and legal issues. Offers a practical guide to effective research. Sets the agenda for future developments in the subject. Written by an experienced researcher and teacher with a background in sociology, the book is a comprehensive and invaluable introduction to this growing field of social research.

Quantitative Methods

Quantitative methods (normally using deductive logic) seek regularities in human lives, by separating the social world into empirical components called variables which can be represented numerically as frequencies or rate, whose associations with each other can be explored by statistical techniques, and accessed through researcher-introduced stimuli and systematic measurement.

Section Outline: Two traditions? Core issues: regularities; variables; numerical values; statistical association; measurement stimuli; controlled measurement; external world. Large samples and deductive logic. ‘Scientific knowledge’. Techniques, philosophy and temperaments. Fashions in methods. Methodological pluralism. Overlap of quantitative and qualitative methods.

It is conventional to divide social research methods into two types: ‘quantitative’ and ‘qualitative’. This makes it easier to identify differences between approaches to research, in the form of a rough ‘shorthand’ way of talking about ...

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