Issues with only using secondary data for the presentation

Initially for our presentation we wanted to do some primary research on university students who are members of university sports teams and whether they consumed more alcohol than other students who were not members.The reason we wanted to do this was due to the fact that we have friends who are within sporting groups, and one of us thought that it was just all students that consumed a lot of alcohol, whereas the other believed it to be sports teams members who drank more so than other students. However, due to the issues around us performing our own primary research we were unable to do so. We wanted to make up online questionnaires/surveys which we would ask both students who are members or sports teams and those who are not to answer. We were going to ask students at UCLan and at other universities around the UK where we had friends. After finding we only had allowance to do primary research within our own class, then we decided there was no way this would be possible to achieve.

That was when we decided to change our mind to focus on students as a whole and the reasons behind their high levels of alcohol. We did some brief research before we decided for definite that this would be our research focus to make sure there was enough secondary research available. Once we found there was we were able to continue with our poster.

One of the issues I found with using secondary data is that you never quite manage to find the exact answer to the questions you have in your head, whereas if you were able to do your own research you would find this by making it a question in the questionnaire. As Heaton (1998) found, the compatibility of the data all depends on the quality of the data which is being used, and how best it fits to the research you are trying to find. 

Another issue is to do with ethics. As we did not conduct the original research, we do not know that all the ethical issues were followed and abided by in the first place. Given that you cannot get additional consent for research that has already taken place, it is up to the researcher to make a judgement about whether the re-use of data is acceptable to be used. Growing interest in re-using data make it imperative that researchers in general now consider obtaining consent which covers the possibility of secondary analysis as well as the research in hand; this is consistent with professional guidelines on ethical practice (British Sociological Association 1996).

Overall, the secondary data I found I was quite pleased with, and we did have quite a lot of good data, but there was still the odd question I wish we could have had a straight answer for that I did not find on the results we found.

• British Sociological Association (1996) 'Statement of Ethical Practice'.
• Heaton, J., (1998) 'Secondary analysis of qualitative data'. Social Research Update, Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Issue 22