ABSTRACT
This chapter covers what data look like in their raw form within a dataset and defines how to work with data to get them ready to analyze. It examines wide variety of datasets that are readily available for analysis and discusses how to build an additive index and check if it is acceptable. The chapter details newer forms that data take, from Internet databases to media analyses and discusses types of variables used in statistical analysis. It provides an example of how researchers used an Internet dating site to study multiracial people and also provides an example of how researchers used Google and Twitter to study media effects. The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) runs out of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. In 1968, the PSID researchers chose a nationally representative sample of more than 18,000 people living in 5,000 families. The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health is another longitudinal survey.
