Content:
 

1. Prerequisites and uses of secondary analysis
2. Data for secondary analysis
3. Using old data to test new ideas
4. Technical means to add to the informational value of data
5. The potential of secondary analysis for teaching
6. Creating the data base for social science research
7. Notes

5. The potential of secondary analysis for teaching

Normally the lecturer or the individual student cannot afford to pay a large amount of money for collecting the data to test their ideas. Here data archives can provide real data for training purposes. In many cases subsets of fully fledged surveys will be sufficient for gaining hands on experience. Training seminars like the Summer Schools of the Inter­-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) or of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), or the Zentralarchiv Spring Seminars employ specially prepared data sets for the practical work complementing the lectures and theoretical introductions to data analysis. This concept of learning by doing is also behind the development of new teaching instruments like "Teaching packages". They consist of a work book giving an introduction to the major research concepts in a particular field and a data file custom-tailored to study these concepts with the computer. Four International Workbooks have been developed with sponsorship of the International Social Science Council and UNESCO (3).

A particularly valuable approach to teaching social research has been the replication of classical studies. In this way students were confronted with classical research by prominent scholars, and they could critically analyse the original data sets, used by the principal investigators. Certainly it is not guaranteed that students arrive at the same results as principal investigators did, but the assumption that the results of the reanalysis might be correct in cases where they differ from the original findings has some empirical grounding, too.