Ahra Wu
Data Science/Analysis Research Librarian
axwu@hamilton.edu
Schedule an appointment
Define Your Research Question
State your research question without describing the sources or data. This will help you identify a variable or variables (underlined below).
Examples:
Q1. Which characteristics of voters explain their vote choices in the upcoming 2020 presidential election?
Q2. Do free trade agreements (FTAs) promote the members' bilateral international trade?
Define Your Measurements
Find a specific language that best describes your concepts. This will help you choose a data set.
Examples:
Q1, characteristics of voters:
Q2, countries' bilateral international trade
Identify Population, Unit of Analysis, and Unit of Observation
Who are you interested in studying? Who or what is being described by your variable(s)? What is the unit in your data set? This will also help you choose a data set.
(Micro-level) <-----Individuals, households, cities, states/provinces, countries -----> (Macro-level)
Examples:
Q1: Those who are eligible to vote in the 2020 presidential election, at the individual-level
Q2: Country dyads in the world, for all countries in the world
Identify Time Frame and Frequency
For what point in time do you want to know this about the people, institutions, or products you identified? How often do you want to know it about them?
Examples:
Q1: The data are collected for the 2020 election year, and are not repeated over time.
Q2: As many years as possible, repeated every year
Identify the Group Structure of Your Data
Are you looking for data collected at regular intervals over time? Identifying what sort of time series may be helpful as you search for data.
Think about Your Data Analysis Methods and Tools
Don't know which data analysis method to choose? The model choice depends on your variable types and your data structure. Use this flowchart and the UCLA IDRE's guide to find the method for your analysis and its example code.
Also, choose the statistical package for your analysis. For example, for quantitative analyses, people often use R, SPSS, Stata, or Python. For qualitative analyses, NVivo and MAXQDA are used often. All of the programs are either freely available or offered by Hamilton College. If you need assistance with using these packages, contact Ahra Wu (axwu@hamilton.edu).
We are also building Blackboard learning modules for these programs. Currently, a Stata Blackboard module is available to students. Contact Ahra Wu (axwu@hamilton.edu) to gain access to the Stata module.
* Adapted from Nicole Scholtz' guide to Finding Data at the University of Michigan
Statista
More than 1,000,000 statistics on 80,000 topics from around 18,000 sources.
Social Explorer
Visually Explore Demographic Data
Tell a Story with Data
Advanced Exploration Tools
What content is available on Social Explorer?
Macro-level Data Available Online
Micro-level Data Available Online
NOTE: Registration required to view questions/results and to download data sets.
Macro-level Data Available Online
Micro-level Data Available Online
Resources Available In-person
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