Secondary Qualitative Research Methodology Using Online Data within the Context of Social Sciences

Qualitative research using interviews is a crucial and established inquiry method in social sciences to ensure that the study outputs represent the researched people and area rather than those who are researching. However, first hand primary data collection is not always possible, often due to external circumstances. Additionally, the use of secondary data, particularly open data, is progressively preferred to increase efficiency and gain geographical breadth. Therefore, this paper proposes a new step-by-step secondary qualitative inquiry methodology for online, publicly available interview data. Such procedural approach can help increase rigor, explicitly consider and mitigate potential pitfalls, and expand the research community’s datasets. The 7-step methodology is based on a hybrid approach with elements of pragmatic qualitative approach, discursive grounded theory, and narrative approach and refers to research ethical principles of autonomy, equity, and diversity. One of the proposed steps is data quality assessment, which consists of quality assessment of data context and data content with a total of 16 quality dimensions to filter the collected data. The data analysis method comprises of content analysis for dataset categorization and thematic discourse analysis to answer the pre-set research questions. Additionally, the methodology covers the ethical and legal considerations relating to secondary online data and reporting the research findings of such data. By providing an example in the field of forced migration, we demonstrate how the methodology provides structure when conducting secondary qualitative research.