Unobtrusive Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches
75 Analyzing Others’ Data
One advantage (or disadvantage, depending on which parts of the research process you most enjoy) of unobtrusive research is that you may be able to skip the data collection phase altogether. Whether you wish to analyze qualitative data or quantitative data sources, there are a number of free data sets available to social researchers. This section introduces you to several of those sources.
Many sources of quantitative data are publicly available in Canada from Statistics Canada (Stats Can). For example, the General Social Survey (GSS) covers a broad range of topics. Stats Can also provides workshops, training, webinars, and conferences across Canada for a fee, that are available to interested Canadians.
Unfortunately for qualitative researchers, far fewer sources of free, publicly available qualitative data exist. This is slowly changing, however, as technical sophistication grows and it becomes easier to digitize and share qualitative data. Despite comparatively fewer sources than for quantitative data, there are still a number of data sources available to qualitative researchers whose interests or resources limit their ability to collect data on their own.
The Murray Research Archive Harvard, housed at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University, offers case histories and qualitative interview data. The Global Feminisms project at the University of Michigan offers interview transcripts and videotaped oral histories focused on feminist activism; women’s movements; and academic women’s studies in Brazil, China, India, Nicaragua, Poland, Russia and the United States.
Keep in mind that the resources mentioned here represent just a snapshot of the many sources of publicly available data that can be easily accessed via the web. Table 13.1 “Sources of Publicly Available Data” summarizes the data sources discussed in this section.
| Organization | Focus/topic | Data type | Web address |
|---|---|---|---|
| Statistics Canada | National Household Survey complements census data and provides information on Canadian demographics, including social & economic characteristics and household unit information | Quantitative | http://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p2SV.pl?Function=getSurvey&SDDS=5178 |
| National Opinion Research Center | General Social Survey; demographic, behavioural, attitudinal, and special interest questions; national sample | Quantitative | http://www.norc.org/About/Pages/default.aspx |
| Add Health | Longitudinal social, economic, psychological, and physical well-being of cohort in grades 7–12 in 1994, next data collection to occur in 201 | Quantitative | http://www.cpc.unc.edu/projects/addhealth |
| Center for Demography of Health and Aging | Wisconsin Longitudinal Study; life course study of cohorts who graduated from high school in 1957 | Quantitative | http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/wlsresearch/ |
| Institute for Social & Economic Research | British Household Panel Survey; longitudinal study of British lives and well-being | Quantitative | https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/bhps |
| International Social Survey Program | International data similar to GSS | Quantitative | http://www.issp.org/ |
| The Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard | Large archive of written data, audio, and video focused on | Quantitative and qualitative | http://dvn.iq.harvard.edu/dvn/dv/mra |
Text Attributions
- This chapter was adapted from Chapter 11.4 in Principles of Sociological Inquiry, which was adapted by the Saylor Academy without attribution to the original authors or publisher, as requested by the licensor. © Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
