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*Statistics and Data: Finding, Collecting, & Analyzing Data

One-stop-shopping for statistics and raw data in social science disciplines.

Need data for a thesis, dissertation, course project, or grant proposal? The resources highlighted on this page will enable you to find raw data to analyze for your project. 

Research Data Services (RDS) - helping you GET DATA READY!

The Library's RESEARCH DATA SERVICES (RDS) faculty members assist GSU students, faculty, and staff with data analysis tools & methods, data visualization, finding data & statistics, data collection, and data cleaning & management.

WAYS WE HELP:

  • VIDEO TUTORIALS and MICRO-CREDENTIAL BADGES -- data-skills trainings at your fingertips when convenient for you.
  • SESSIONS for CLASSES -- discipline-relevant data-skills trainings for both undergraduate and graduate students.
  • SESSIONS for RESEARCH TEAMS -- tailored trainings to support GSU faculty's research agendas.
  • ONE-ON-ONE HELP -- via Quick Data Help shifts offered throughout the semester, plus opportunities to schedule longer consults.

See this page for other data-skills resources and training opportunities at GSU and beyond!

GSS ~ U.S. Sociological and Attitudinal Trend Data, 1972 - 2021

The General Social Survey (GSS) "takes the pulse of America" on a vast number of topics, with national-level data collected beginning in 1972 to present. A great resource for any discipline!

To identify variables for the entire dataset and/or specific years:

Options for Analyzing GSS Data: 

Use SDA to analyze data online analysis with no need for downloading or special software:

  • Use the SDA 4.0 online analysis tool. For help using SDA 4.0, check out these SDA 4.0 video tutorials.
  • Check out the "Quick Tables" options, which allow you to produce simple tables using a pre-selected subset of variables. 
  • Conduct simple bivariate analyses using the GSS Explorer Tabulations feature. 

Download data for analysis in statistical software (e.g., SPSS, SAS, Stata, R): 

  • Download GSS Data directly from the GSS website (available in SAS, SPSS, or Stata format). Single year and multi-year (panel) data available. 
  • Download the entire GSS (available in SPSS or Stata format) via GSS Explorer.
  • Create customized data extracts containing just the variables you need (available in Excel, SPSS, SAS, Stata, DDI, and R format) via GSS Explorer.
  • Download the entire dataset, pre-constructed subsets, or create customized subsets of the data using SDA 4.0. For help using SDA 4.0, check out these SDA 4.0 video tutorials.

Education Datasets

Religion Datasets

International Datasets

Business & Economic Datasets

Media Datasets

Criminal Justice & Law Datasets

More Dataset Repositories

ICPSR (Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research) - Database of Datasets

Searching for datasets for research in the social and behavioral sciences? ICPSR is a great place to start!

 

The ICPSR (Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research) database has over 10,500 datasets available spanning various social science disciplines and topics. The datasets in ICPSR are primarily quantitative, but it also includes some qualitative datasets.

ACCESSING ICPSR DATA: Check out this page for all the ins and outs of accessing ICPSR data and downloading datasets.

SEARCHING TIPS: You can keyword search for datasets, but browsing by topics, series, or thematic data collections is sometimes more efficient. For about 76% of their datasets, they also have variable-level/question-level search capabilities.

HELP RESOURCES: Check out some of ICPSR's YouTube videos for searching tips.

Demographic Datasets

Health and Science Datasets