Skip to Main Content
     

Database Guides: ICPSR

A Guide to using the ICPSR (Inter-University Consortium for Political & Social Research) database

Searching ICPSR

Start your search from the Find Data menu in ICPSR: 

For a simple keyword search, choose Find Data from the menu. In addition to searching, there are a number of ways to browse the collections -- by country, or by popular search terms. 

Some search suggestions from ICPSR: 

  • Unlike other research databases, ICPSR usually is successful at parsing searches phrased as a question. 
     
  • You can search for multiple keywords:
    income health china
     
  • Use quotes to search for an exact match: 
    "income distribution"
     
  • The Find Data search searches the descriptions of the various studies in ICPSR. rather than the data itself. However, once you have searched, you can also Search/Compare Variables (which checks for studies which measure variables matching your keywords). The purpose of this tool is to help you locate the studies which are most relevant to the topic you are searching for. 

    To search for studies that contain specific variables, separate your search terms with commas:
    read newspapers, political party, volunteer
    drug use, probation, education

Start your search from the Find Data menu in ICPSR: 

In addition to keyword searching, ICPSR allows you to search for data which includes specific variable(s). To search by variable, choose Search/Compare Variables from the menu. Somewhat-differently from the variable relevance search, the purpose of this tool is to help you identify studies that are asking the questions that you are interested in. 

Some search suggestions from ICPSR: 

  • Enter words or strings that are likely to appear in a variable name, label, question, and value labels: 
    Presedential election
    will return variables dealing with all presidential elections

    Presidential election Obama
    will return only variables dealing with the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections

  • Use quotes to search for specific phrases:
    "life satisfaction" "minority rights" "community programs"

  • The minus sign may be used to remove certain types of results:
    "Presidential debate" -"Bill Clinton"
    will eliminate the debates from 1992 and 1996 in which Clinton participated

  • A Boolean "AND" is automatically included between your keywords. 

  • The search is not case-sensitive, and automatically stems, ex -- president = president, presidential, etc. -- there is no need to use the wildcard asterisk presiden*.

  • Try searching for indexes, which usually include multiple questions (ex - "depression index").

Once you have conducted your search, you can also use this tool to Compare Variables. This will allow you to see how similar a variable is between different studies -- how did each study measure the variable? Did they use the same definitions? etc.