Archival Data: Advantages and Disadvantages for Research in Psychology

Archival data may be thought of as any sort of information, previously collected by others, amenable to systematic study. Here, the focus is on information that may be used to answer questions related to psychological phenomena, with an overview of the myriad sources of data available to the psychological researcher, and the advantages and disadvantages of secondary versus primary data use. Particularly creative uses of archival data and good examples of archived studies, along with resources for those interested in archival data, are given.