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Social Science Data

A curated list of large indexes, repositories, and datasets for various social science topics.

How to Find a Data Set

If you're not sure how or where to start looking for a data set that you can use for your assignment, follow the steps below. 

Steps for finding a data set for your assignment

Step 1. Identify your topic of interest

First, determine what topic interests you—would you like to analyze data on sports, US presidential elections, climate change, or public health?

However, keep an open mind and keep your interests somewhat broad at this stage - sometimes it's tricky to find a data set that includes the specific variables you are interested in. You may need to identify a broad interest, and then focus your interest as you review variables in available datasets.  

Step 2. Identify your data requirements

Keeping your topic of interest in mind, create a data requirements checklist for your assignment to help guide your search.

This checklist should include attributes that a dataset must have in order for you to use it to complete your assignment and other considerations you should take into account, such as minimum number of observations (rows), type of dependent (outcome) variable you need, type of independent variables you need, and your previous experience and skill with preparing data for analysis.

Step 3. Search for possible data sets

There are a couple different ways you can search for a data set on your topic that meets your data requirements. Where you start your search for a dataset for your assignment will depend on your topic.

  • Option 1: Search the resources in this Research Guide. In the Databases and Repositories section of this Research Guide, you will find a selection of sources for micro data and data sets on a variety of topics from a variety of sources.

  • Option 2: Search for datasets cited in articles on your topic. You can also find articles in library databases that have conducted analysis on your topic and check what dataset they used. This information is typically found in the methods section, appendix, and/or reference list. 

Step 4. Determine if your data requirements are met

Once you have identified a dataset that looks like it may meet your requirements based on the title and summary, take a look at the data dictionary and metadata to see if all of your requirements are met. You will need to download and explore the dataset to be sure.