Timescapes secondary analysis: comparison, context and working across data sets

Abstract

The article illustrates some of the strategies we are developing in the secondary analysis of Timescapes data and seeks to draw some general lessons for qualitative data analysts. We focus on three different areas of work. Across all of these we examine the potential explanatory value of working with data in a comparative way, and engage with some challenges presented by contextual specificity in the way qualitative data are generated. In the first area we consider the issue of how we situate qualitative data with reference to diversity across the population, and use an example of working between a single qualitative Timescapes data set and survey data. Understanding how qualitative data are situated offers a framework for internal comparison which maps onto wider diversity. In the second area we consider the outcome of bringing together primary researchers whose comparison of project data, as secondary analysts, allow them to 'hear silences' and, therefore, re-interrogate their own data within a revised conceptual framework. In the third area we describe how, as secondary analysts, we have worked across Timescapes data sets. Here we consider the challenges of undertaking secondary analysis across diverse, project specific, research contexts, and the potential of comparative working across data sets for enhancing understanding.

Illness identity as an important component of candidacy: Contrasting experiences of help-seeking and access to care in cancer and heart disease

“…One of the key concerns about secondary analysis is data fit (Irwin et al, 2012). Across the included data sets the interviews are essentially a series of stories of illness and patienthood, which hold rich descriptions of experience and access to health care from the appearance of symptoms through to diagnosis and care, and as such we believe that these data are well placed to inform this present study's objectives.…”

“…As Irwin and colleagues (2012) note, secondary analysis of qualitative data has great promise but it is not without challenges (Irwin et al, 2012). Despite burgeoning work in the area there is some dispute about whether meaning can be derived from re-visiting or re-analysing qualitative data.…”

Essential conditions for the implementation of comprehensive school health to achieve changes in school culture and improvements in health behaviours of students

“…Issues concerning the relationship between primary and secondary analysis, context, and researcher reflexivity are important to consider [28]. For the purpose of this secondary analysis, we combined and examined data from five separate datasets to explore the essential conditions of CSH implementation.…”

Living with low carbon technologies: An agenda for sharing and comparing qualitative energy research

“…As has been argued in relation to qualitative secondary analysis (Savage, 2005;Irwin and Winterton, 2011), analysing data in ways that the original research did not, exposes absences and new lines of enquiry, that were obscured in (and by) the original research framing. We argue here that this can also be an outcome of the approach taken in this paper to reanalysis and combining data sets.…”

“…Rigorous strategies for comparing studies or indeed working with secondary qualitative dataoffers a potentially important avenue for expanding and enriching QER 8 . Wider exploration of sharing and comparing data would of course require qualitative researchers to be more transparent about the whole process of data collection, analysis, interpretation and the imperfections of research processes (Valentine, 2006;Irwin and Winterton, 2011). Such an agenda poses particular challenges for an academic culture which fosters competition, and likely concerns about findings arising from reanalysis of datasets (Valentine 2006).…”