essential-guide-to-qualitative-in-organizational-research

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––– PRESERVING, SHARING AND REUSING DATA –––––––––– 295METHODOLOGICAL CONCERNSSociologists are not used to consulting colleagues’ data and the concept of ‘secondary analysis’is still viewed by most qualitative researchers as pertaining to ‘number crunching’ activities.Some researchers believe that qualitative data cannot be used sensibly without the accumulatedbackground knowledge, or rapport with the participant, which the original investigatoracquired during its collection. Thus the essential contextual experience of ‘being there’ andthe lack of being able to engage in reflexive interpretation is seen as a barrier. Mauthner etal. (1998) endorse this negative stance towards the practice of reusing data in asserting that ‘dataare the product of the reflexive relationship between the researcher and researched, constrainedand informed by biographical, historical, political, theoretical and epistemologicalcontingencies’ (1998: 742).While qualitative research uses reflexivity relating to experience of fieldwork as a meansof enhancing data collection and forming new hypotheses in the field, the secondary analysisof data should not be dismissed that easily. Indeed, there are instances where research data is,in a sense ‘reused’, by the investigators themselves. For example, some principal investigatorswho write the final articles resulting from a project, have employed research staff or a fieldforce to collect the data. Similarly, for those working in research teams, sharing one’s ownexperiences of the research are essential. Both rely on the fieldworkers and co-workersdocumenting detailed notes about the project and communicating them to each other.Furthermore, the whole practice of social historians is based on understanding evidencecreated by other witnesses and indeed also of legal proof. Documentation of the researchprocess provides some degree of the context, and whilst it cannot compete with being there,field notes, letters and memos documenting the research can serve to aid the original fieldworkexperience. Audio and video tape recordings also augment the capacity to reuse data withouthaving actually been there.FEAR OF CRITICISM OR EXPOSUREGenerally, qualitative social ‘scientists’ are not used to making their findings accountable.Therefore some feel vulnerable about others seeing their data, and the possibility of criticism.However, accepting the label of a social ‘scientist’ does imply a willingness to adopt thescientific model of offering our data to scrutiny, and the testing of reliability and validity.Indeed, such practice should lead to better quality, more transparent research.CASE STUDY: REVISTING PETER TOWNSEND’S DATA COLLECTION ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––Peter Townsend’s decision in 1996 to deposit his life’s work in The National Social Policy andSocial Change Archive at the University of Essex has proved to be an invaluable illustrationof the potential for reuse which archived qualitative data sets offer to researchers. The PeterTownsend Collection, as it has become known, comprises more than 80 boxes of archivedpapers, which contain not only diverse forms of qualitative material as personalcorrespondence, interview transcripts, photographs and diaries, but also span a period of some50 years. The richness of the data is augmented still further by Townsend’s punctiliousapproach to the organization and preservation of all contextual material relating to his work.Moreover there is another, more recent layer within this collection which further enhancesits reuse potential. Between 1997 and 1999, Paul Thompson conducted a series of in-depth