Data Mining

Mining Data from Documents

Interviewing and observing are two data collection strategies designed to gather data that specifically address the research question. Documents, however, are usually produced for reasons oilier than the research at hand and therefore are not subject to the same limitations. The presence of documents does not intrude upon or alter the setting in ways that the presence of the investigator often does. Nor are documents dependent upon the whims of human beings whose cooperation is essential for collecting good data through interviews and observations.

Documents are in fact, a readv-made source of data easily accessible to the imaginative and resourceful investigator. This chapter examines the nature of documents, various types of documents, their use in qualitative research, and their limitations and strengths. The last section of the chapter presents a look at a relatively new type of documents and data those obtained on-line.

Nature of Documents

A number of terms are used to refer to sources of data in a study other than interviews or observations. I have chosen the term document as the umbrella term to refer to a wide range of written, visual, and physical material relevant to the study at hand. This term includes materials "in the broad sense of any communication" for example novels, newspapers, love songs, diaries, psychiatric interviews, and the like.

Documents, as the term is used in this chapter, also include what LeCompte and Preissle (1993) define as artifacts "symbolic materials such as writing and signs and nonsymbolic materials such as tools and furnishings" . Others use lie will "available" materials or data. This means just about anything in existence prior to the research at hand. "The researcher may make use of letters or television transcripts, historical documents or journalistic accounts, tribal artifacts or works of art. He may analyze the records of corporations, police court'.. or the U.S. Bureau of the Census.

He may reexamine . . . the already completed studies of oilier scholars. As all these and diverse other materials accumulate, it may well be that increasing numbers of researchers will find that the data they need have already been gathered". Photographs, film, and video can also be used as data sources, as can physical evidence or traces. Although this chapter concentrates on written documents, the general discussion applies to all forms of data not gathered through interviews or observations.