ICPSR Research Guide

What is in the ICPSR?

• Large data sets.
• Publications resulting from those data sets.

Logging in:

• You must create an account to use data.
• FB/Google logins use the password from those accounts.

• Documentation files as pdfs. These include the original questionnaire if there is one, the codebook, and a description of the study and citation.
• Data in many forms – SPSS, SAS, Stata, ACSII, or R
• Downloads come as zipped files delivered to a desktop or thumb drive with all of these files included.

• All library computers and Social Science lab computers have SPSS software on them.
• You can use this software to analyze your data sets.
• Alternately, you can do some online analysis without these programs, though you will be restricted to certain studies.
• To find online data click on studies for which online data is available.

• Click on the “Find Data” link at the top of the page.
• You can find data in a number of ways:
  • By keyword (“teen smoking”)
  • By topic (a browse feature)
  • By series (if you are interested in longitudinal data)
  • By Geography (if you are interested in Montana-specific data)
  • By Thematic Collection (for data grouped by broad disciplinary themes)
  • By Global Data (for data about or collected in other countries)
• You can search for data that can be viewed online.
• You can also search for replication datasets if you’re interested in replicating someone’s study.
• Searches can be narrowed down by using the filters on the left hand side of the screen.
• Some data is restricted! For questions, see ICPSR’s page on restricted datasets.

• The study homepage is like a webpage for that study.
• Let’s look at a sample search for “Monitoring the Future”
• What is on this page?:
  • Alternative titles.
  • Principle investigators
  • A summary
  • Whether it is part of a series
  • Access Notes
  • Datasets
  • Codebooks (which describe the content, structure and layout of the data collection)
  • Citation information
  • Funding information
  • Scope of the study
  • Methodology
  • Other versions
  • Related Publications
  • Variables

• These are the publications that ICPSR knows about that are connected to datasets in the archive.
• You can access them in full text by following the links.
• Anything not available as full text can be accessed through an Interlibrary Loan request.

• A variable is a question and an answer from a survey.
• Click on variables for “Monitoring the Future” to see the complete list.
• You can then choose to compare variables side-by-side.
• You can also choose to compare variables from different studies side-by-side.
  • As an example: do a search for “marital status”
  • Click on “variables” tab
  • Compare studies #18 and #28 for differences in types of questions