Last Updated on October 12, 2026 by Karl Thompson
Secondary qualitative data is information that already exists in written or audio-visual form, produced by someone other than the researcher. In brief:
- It mainly takes the form of documents: official documents such as government reports, personal (or “life”) documents such as diaries and letters, and media output such as news and websites.
- Its main strengths are that there is a huge variety of it, it may be the only way of researching the past, life documents give insight into people’s meanings, and public documents are usually free and raise few ethical issues.
- Its main limitations are summed up by John Scott’s (1990) four criteria: documents may lack authenticity, credibility, meaning and representativeness.
Secondary qualitative data is part of the research methods topic in AQA A-level sociology, and comes up mainly in the theory and methods section of Paper 3, and also on Paper 1. This post covers documents as a source of data. For secondary data in general, including official statistics, see the strengths and limitations of secondary data.
What is secondary qualitative data?
Secondary qualitative data is information that already exists in written or audio-visual form. It includes government reports, newspapers, novels, letters, diaries, pictures, and television and radio output. It is “secondary” because the researcher didn’t produce it, and “qualitative” because it is in the form of words or images rather than numbers.
Official documents
Official documents are produced by organisations such as government departments and agencies, businesses and charities. Examples include Ofsted reports and official government enquiries. These are a matter of public record.
Personal documents
Personal documents are first-hand accounts of social events and personal experiences, which usually reflect the writer’s feelings and attitudes. Examples include letters, diaries, photo albums and autobiographies. There is more on these in my post on personal documents in social research.
Personal documents are sometimes called life documents. Life documents:
- can take many forms.
- are created by individuals
- record their experiences and social actions
- are mostly qualitative
- can offer insight into people’s subjective states
- can be historical or contemporary
Personal Documents may sometimes be referred to as Life Documents
Life documents are created by individuals and record details of that person’s experiences and social actions. They are predominantly qualitative and may offer insights into people’s subjective states. They can be historical or contemporary and can take a wide variety of forms. Ken Plummer (1982) illustrates this diversity when he says: “people keep diaries, send letters, take photos, write memo’s, tell biographies, scrawl graffiti, publish memoirs, write letters to the papers, leave suicide notes, inscribe memorials on tombstones, shoot films, paint pictures, make music and try to record their personal dreams.”
Media output
The mass media are also a major source of secondary qualitative data, from newspaper articles and TV news to websites and social media. Sociologists usually study media output using content analysis.
Types of secondary qualitative data: summary
| Category | Examples |
|---|---|
| Official documents | Government reports (“public documents”); company reports and accounts (“private documents”) |
| Personal (or life) documents | Letters (including suicide notes); diaries, blogs and vlogs; individual social media profiles; graffiti; autobiographies. |
| Media output | The news (and “fake news”); websites. Wikipedia may be of special interest to students! |
Strengths of using documents in social research
Variety. There is a huge variety of secondary qualitative data available. In many topic areas it is the richest source of information there is.
The only way to research the past. Documents may be the only way of finding out about the past, because the people involved can no longer be interviewed.
Insight into meanings. Interpretivists favour life documents in particular, because they weren’t produced for the researcher. They should reveal the author’s view of the world and the meanings they attach to their experiences, as long as their credibility and authenticity can be verified (see the limitations below).
Free and detailed. Many public documents are free to access, and they are often very detailed.
Few ethical issues. There are few ethical issues in accessing public documents, since they are already a matter of public record.
HOWEVER, the same isn’t true of personal documents. Diaries, letters and private messages were written to be private, which raises questions of consent and privacy, especially if their authors are still alive.
Limitations of using documents in social research
John Scott (1990) identified four criteria for assessing documents, which are also four of their main theoretical limitations.
| Criterion | The question to ask | The problem |
|---|---|---|
| Authenticity | Is the document genuine, and do we know who wrote it? | Parts of a document may be missing because of its age, and we may not even be able to verify who actually wrote it |
| Credibility | Is it free from error and distortion? | We may not be able to verify why somebody wrote the document. Official documents in particular may be politically distorted, or “spun” |
| Meaning | Is it clear and understandable? | Archaic language may make documents hard to interpret, and if the author is dead we can’t ask them what they meant |
| Representativeness | Is it typical of documents of its kind? | Many documents are never stored, others deteriorate with age and become unusable, and others are deliberately withheld from researchers and the public gaze |
Scott wrote about historical documents, but the same four questions apply to any document, including a blog post or a social media profile.
Documents and the theoretical perspectives
Interpretivists favour qualitative documents, especially life documents, because they give access to people’s meanings and experiences in their own words, which helps the researcher achieve Verstehen.
Positivists are more sceptical. Documents are unsystematic, hard to compare and usually unrepresentative, so positivists see them as unsuitable for identifying patterns or testing hypotheses. Where positivists do use documents, they are more likely to use formal content analysis, which turns documents into numbers by counting what they contain.
Strengths and limitations of documents: summary table
| Strengths | Limitations | |
|---|---|---|
| Theoretical | Life documents give insight into meanings (interpretivists); not produced for the researcher | May lack authenticity, credibility, meaning and representativeness (Scott); hard to compare; disliked by positivists |
| Practical | Huge variety; may be the only way to research the past; public documents often free and detailed | Documents may not survive, or may be withheld; interpretation is time-consuming |
| Ethical | Public documents raise few ethical issues | Personal documents raise issues of consent and privacy |
How documents come up in the exam
Documents usually come up in a 10-mark question on the problems or advantages of using documents, or as evaluation in an essay on secondary data or qualitative methods. Scott’s four criteria are a ready-made structure for the limitations, but say which type of document you mean. A diary and an Ofsted report have very different strengths and limitations.
For a worked example, see two practical problems of using documents in social research (10).
Theory and Methods revision bundle
If you like this sort of thing, then you might like my Theory and Methods revision bundle, which contains the following:
Signposting and related posts
This post has been written primarily for students studying the research methods topic, as part of the AQA’s A-Level Sociology course.
Secondary qualitative data is usually taught alongside official statistics, the main form of secondary quantitative data. For secondary data in general, see the strengths and limitations of secondary data.
For specific types of document, see personal documents, and content analysis of the mass media.
For how documents can be used to research education, see using documents to research education.
For more detailed posts on research methods, please see my page on research methods.
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