11.4: Analyzing Existing Data

Learning Objectives

• Name at least two sources of publicly available quantitative data.

• Name at least two sources of publicly available qualitative 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. The General Social Survey (GSS) is one of the most commonly used sources of publicly available data among quantitative researchers. Data for the GSS have been collected regularly since 1972, thus offering social researchers the opportunity to investigate changes in the attitudes and beliefs of people in the United States over time. Questions on the GSS cover an extremely broad range of topics, from family life to political and religious beliefs to work experiences.

Other sources of quantitative data include Add Health, a study that was initiated in 1994 to learn about the lives and behaviors of adolescents in the United States, and the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, a study that has, for over 60 years, surveyed 10,000 women and men who graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957. Another massive repository is the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), housed at the University of Michigan, which maintains an extensive archive of datasets across the social and behavioral sciences. Quantitative researchers interested in studying social processes outside of the United States also have many options when it comes to publicly available data sets. Data from Understanding Society (which incorporated the former British Household Panel Study), a longitudinal, representative survey of households in the United Kingdom, are available to those conducting academic research. The International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) merges the GSS with its counterparts in other countries around the globe. These represent just a few of the many sources of publicly available quantitative data.

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. The Qualitative Data Repository (QDR) at Syracuse University is a dedicated archive for storing and sharing digital data generated or collected through qualitative and multi-method research in the social sciences. QDR curates and enables the download of various qualitative data, including interview transcripts, focus groups, field notes, and archival documents. The UK Data Service also provides QualiBank, which serves as a principal repository for economic, population, and social research qualitative data in the United Kingdom.

The Harvard Dataverse offers case histories, qualitative interview data, and a secure open-source platform for sharing datasets. The Global Feminisms project at the University of Michigan offers open-access interview transcripts and videotaped oral histories focused on feminist activism, women’s movements, and academic women’s studies in countries around the world. At the University of Connecticut, the Oral History Office provides links to a number of other oral history sites. Not all the links offer publicly available data, but many do. Finally, the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill offers digital versions of many primary documents online, such as journals, letters, correspondence, and other papers that document the history and culture of the American South.

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 11.3 summarizes the data sources discussed in this section.

Table 11.3 Sources of Publicly Available Data

Organizational Home	Focus/Topic	Data Type
Carolina Population Center	Add Health; longitudinal social, economic, psychological, and physical well-being of cohort in grades 7 to 12 in 1994	Quantitative
Center for Demography of Health and Aging	Wisconsin Longitudinal Study; life course study of cohorts who graduated from high school in 1957	Quantitative
Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)	Extensive archive of datasets across the social and behavioral sciences	Quantitative and Qualitative
International Social Survey Programme	International data similar to the GSS	Quantitative
Harvard Dataverse	Large archive of written data, audio, and video focused on many topics	Quantitative and Qualitative
University of Michigan	Global Feminisms Project; interview transcripts and oral histories focused on feminist activism	Qualitative
Syracuse University	Qualitative Data Repository (QDR); archive for qualitative and multi-method social science data	Qualitative
UK Data Service	QualiBank; repository for economic, population, and social research data in the UK	Qualitative

While the public and free sharing of data has become increasingly common over the years and is an increasingly common requirement of those who fund research, there are potential dangers to making one’s data available to all. For example, the education sector has seen massive vulnerabilities. In December 2024, PowerSchool, a provider of student information systems, experienced a data breach that compromised the records of over 62 million students and nearly 10 million teachers. This exposed highly sensitive information, such as Social Security numbers, medical records, and special education data. For millions of children, this information now circulates in underground markets and is increasingly used as inputs to train AI systems.

Similarly, higher education institutions remain targets for data extraction. In June 2026, the University of Nottingham confirmed a data breach after the hacker group ShinyHunters accessed a student record system and leaked files containing roughly 455,000 unique email addresses, passport numbers, and demographic details of students and alumni. Modern data privacy laws and institutional review boards now strictly govern how data is de-identified before public release, but the tension between open data access and participant privacy remains a central ethical concern for unobtrusive researchers.

Key Takeaways

• Data Reusability: Previously collected data sources enable researchers to conduct analysis without having to collect any of their own data.

• Methodological Variety: Some publicly available data sources are quantitative; others are qualitative.

• Ethical Balance: Researchers must balance the benefits of open data access with the ethical mandate to protect participant privacy.