1. Secondary Data Analysis

2. Overview What is “secondary data analysis”? How do you do it?
What are the advantages and disadvantages?

3. What is it? (Hint: You’re already doing it)
Secondary data analysis
Analyzes data from an existing data set
Data you did not collect yourself (colleague, collaborator, professor)
Data from a study focused on something else (primary analyses/papers already complete)
Data collected for some other purpose (medical records, transcripts, etc.)
Also called “archival data analysis”

4. Data Sets: Examples
Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
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Catalogue of many public data sources
Midlife in the United States (MIDUS)
National longitudinal study of health and well-being

5. Components 1. Permission 2. Data dictionary 3. Data file
Often requires a “data usage agreement”
Rules about which analyses will be conducted, authorship, timeliness
May require IRB approval
2. Data dictionary
Protocol, measures, descriptive statistics
Quality varies: Non-existent, paper files, Excel, PDF
3. Data file
SPSS, Excel, SAS, or something else

8. Challenges
Upfront investment: Varying quality of data dictionaries and collaborators
Imperfect measures
You might want a quality measure of extraversion, and all they have is a single item on optimism
Politics: Some psychology departments quantify science in terms of studies-per-paper rather than papers-per-study  may be viewed as lesser science, or may require theses/dissertations to use “original” data collection

9. Opportunities Upfront investment = delayed gratification
Efficient on many levels
Implementation, publishing, funding
Significance
High-quality studies
May begin by asking the PI, “What is the most important finding in the data set you’ve never had time to publish?”
Can be symbiotic (mutually beneficial)
Own posters/presentations/publications, PI is happy for added productivity (publications are good, helps with funders), good way of building a new collaboration

10. Salzman study as of Feb 2017 Funded Grant Failed Aim 1
Also: 13+ conference posters/presentations, 5+ promotions, 4 students advancing on to higher degree programs, 5+ students who were able to attend a national conference
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