FINDING STATISTICS

Strategies and Resources for

Learning Outcomes

In this session, you will…

Increase your knowledge of statistics sources

Learn several strategies for finding statistics

Develop some ideas about how/when statistics may be helpful for different kinds of research

Data versus Statistics The terms are used interchangeably, but there are

important differences

The term statistics is used to describe aggregated, analyzed data, generally answering the question, how many? (numbers/figures/percents)

Data refers to the individual responses or observations as collected. Untabulated. Unanalyzed. “Raw data”

Raw datasets generally require statistical software and the use of codebooks to interpret the data.

Statistics: In a static table

Daoud, A. M. (2002). "The ESL kids are over there": Social and language boundaries between immigrant latino and white high school students. University of California, Santa Barbara). ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, , 198-198 p. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/252128757?accountid=10267. (252128757).

Statistics from a Database

Raw data….

SPSS (Stastical Software) for Raw Data

What kind of statistics? Point-in-time measurements (e.g., how

may people are above/below the poverty line in…?)

Time series (same data point represented over a period of time – years, quarterly, months)

Geographic area – By country, state, city, smaller?

Poll data

Which regions of the country more strongly oppose gun control?

Is a person’s income bracket a good predictor of whether they support or oppose gun control?

iPoll (from the Roper Center) iPoll

[search] gun control

[organization] Gallup

Note the “crosstabs” symbol

1. Which regions of the country more strongly oppose gun control?

2. Is a person’s income bracket a good predictor of whether they support or oppose gun control?

What you want – What there is

Finding statistics or data is often an exercise in making compromises between what you want and what there is.

Some statistical collections won’t go back as far as you need

Some data collections are restricted (to protect respondent’s privacy)

Some data is proprietary and only sold at a steep price (this is especially true for business data).

And sometimes the data you want was never collected

Before the internet… There are lots of statistics available on the

web, and in library subscription databases, but many of these sources will not go back as far as you need.

Example: National Crime Victimization Survey

But we may have it in print!

Strategies

Search an index or compendia or portal to statistical sources, such as the Statistical Abstract of the United States, OECD iLibrary, and more.

Find a statistics database

Search for “statistics” in the library’s “library guides”

Scholar’s trick: Mine the source notes in relevant secondary sources (books, journal articles, etc.)

More strategies…

Search the web, adding the terms “statistics portal” “data repository” etc. , but be prepared to find both statistics and raw data.

For raw data, search a data repository such as CISER, Databib, Dataverse, AidData, and on, and on…

Mine the Secondary Sources

Select a database. For this exercise, let’s use Academic Search Premier

Add some search terms

Add statistics OR data OR table or graph in the line below your topic search terms.

Review what you have found.

Keep an eye out New data sources are popping up all the time

If your work will be data-heavy, look for an option to be added to an email list of organizations or projects that you have found. For example, while working on this session, a note came through my email announcing this resource:

LawAtlas.org

LawAtlasSM is a gateway to key laws aimed at improving our health or access to health care.