Leveraging Secondary Data Analysis in Research on the Use of Research Evidence

Overview

<p>For the August 2022 Officers’ research grants cycle, we are announcing a special interest in applications that use secondary data to answer new questions on how and under what conditions we can improve the use of research evidence.</p> <p>The Foundation is interested in supporting research studies that advance theory and build empirical knowledge on ways to improve the use of research evidence by policymakers, agency leaders, organizational managers, intermediaries, and other decision-makers that influence systems serving youth in ways that benefit young people ages 5-25 in the United States. We are interested in studies from a range of disciplines, fields, and methods, and we encourage investigations into various systems, including justice, housing, child welfare, mental health, and education.</p> <p>Secondary data analysis leverages data collected for one purpose to use it for a secondary purpose (Smith et al., 2011). Secondary analysis of existing data allows researchers to efficiently address high-value research questions without the cost and time of primary data collection.</p> <p>Many of our current and former grantees have collected data during their grant but have been unable to fully analyze it to respond to new, emerging research questions. We understand many researchers have already begun to use secondary data such as social media, Quorum, or web analytics to explore questions around topics such as research mobilization in social networks, integration of research into policy deliberation, and use of decision-support tools.</p> <p>Below we share a few ways that secondary analysis can contribute substantively to the URE literature. As always, we are open to other innovative ideas.</p> <p><strong>Assessing the use of research evidence on youth outcomes</strong></p> <p>Secondary data analysis may help researchers assess the longer-term outcomes of research use than could be measured in their original project. Connecting existing study data to other data sources such as administrative data could facilitate research to understand whether and under what conditions research use can improve youth outcomes.</p> <p><strong>Using existing methods and measures to code data in new ways</strong></p> <p>As we noted above, many researchers have substantial amounts of data collected during prior research projects, not all of which have been analyzed. Teams might consider using existing methods and measures of research use that are amenable to secondary analysis, such as document analysis of archived materials or observation of recorded interactions to answer new research questions (please see uremethods. org for many existing coding schemes).</p> <p><strong>Developing and applying theory in studies of research use</strong></p> <p><strong></strong> Secondary data may support researchers to develop or refine theories of improving research use. Researchers could leverage any of the secondary data methods discussed above to explore new areas or refine existing theoretical frames.</p> <p><strong>Using new methods to measure URE more efficiently</strong></p> <p>The Foundation is interested in the potential for advancements in methods such as machine learning or natural language processing to validate their application to URE research. Methods such as these and others have the potential to help URE researchers more efficiently analyze large amounts of qualitative data (Tseng, 2022).</p>