Data reuse across international contexts? Reflections on new methods for International Qualitative Secondary Analysis

Kahryn Hughes,Esben Houborg,Maria D Herold,Vibeke A Frank

doi:10.1177/14687941211052278

Kahryn Hughes, Esben Houborg + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941211052278

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Abstract

This research note reports on five online workshops by an international team of scholars, the authors, with shared interests in drug (mis)use. The workshops comprise a novel form of collective international qualitative secondary analysis (iQSA) exploring the possibilities for, and value of, qualitative data reuse across international contexts. These preparatory workshops comprise the preliminary stages of a longer programme of methodological development of iQSA, and we used them to identify what challenges there may be for translating evidence across international contexts, what strategies might be best placed to support or facilitate analytical engagement in this direction, and if possible, what empirical value such exchange might have. We discuss how working across international contexts involved the authors in new 'translational' work to address the challenges of establishing and sharing meaning. Such ‘translation’ entailed a modest degree of empirical engagement, namely, the casing of empirical examples from our datasets that supported an articulation of our various research studies, a collective interrogation of how, why and which such cases could be used for best translational effect and a collective reflexive engagement with how these cases generated new and novel questions that in turn re-engaged us with our own data in new ways. Descriptions of our datasets, therefore, emerged as multifaceted assemblages of ‘expertise’ and comprised the evidential bases for new empirical insights, research questions and directions.

Highlights

Over the past two decades, there has been a growing corpus of innovation in qualitative secondary analysis (QSA) using small scale datasets in new and creative ways (e.g. Bishop, 2007; Davidson et al, 2018; Edwards et al, 2020; Hughes, et al, 2020; Irwin et al, 2012; Tarrant and Hughes, 2019; Tarrant, 2017)
This research note reports on key methodological reflections engendered via a series of five online workshops interrogating the possibilities of, and for, international qualitative secondary analysis between the authors, all scholars working in the field of druguse in the Universities of Leeds (UK) and Aarhus (Denmark)
They have played a key role in facilitating the ‘getting started’ on international qualitative secondary analysis (iQSA), and form part of a longer programme of work preparing for, and involving, international data sharing from thematically linked datasets1

Summary

Introduction

Over the past two decades, there has been a growing corpus of innovation in qualitative secondary analysis (QSA) using small scale datasets in new and creative ways (e.g. Bishop, 2007; Davidson et al, 2018; Edwards et al, 2020; Hughes, et al, 2020; Irwin et al, 2012; Tarrant and Hughes, 2019; Tarrant, 2017). This research note reports on key methodological reflections engendered via a series of five online workshops interrogating the possibilities of, and for, international qualitative secondary analysis (iQSA) between the authors, all scholars working in the field of drug (mis)use in the Universities of Leeds (UK) and Aarhus (Denmark) These workshops, in part, comprise a mode of preparatory iQSA: namely, about the feasibility and potential empirical value of international data sharing, rather than involving data sharing. Based on methods of collective QSA (Bornat, et al, 2008; Tarrant and Hughes, 2020) each workshop was planned one at a time, and we describe them as ‘linked’ workshops, we were not aware at the outset of what those links might be, how we might achieve them, whether the workshops would be productive or what they might produce They have played a key role in facilitating the ‘getting started’ on iQSA, and form part of a longer programme of work preparing for, and involving, international data sharing from thematically linked datasets. We conclude with suggestions concerning the wider applicability of our approach for international qualitative research collaboration

Background to methods of QSA

Conclusion

Declaration of conflicting interests