Research Study Methods & Data Sources

Designing a research question and developing a research study takes takes planning. Below are some ebooks available through the UF Libraries and some data sources that you can use for your assignment. Remember to connect to the VPN if you are accessing ebooks from off campus.

 Multidisciplinary Research Methods (ebooks)

• Conducting Needs Assessments: A Multidisciplinary Approach (Soriano 2013): This ebook offers a step-by-step guide to designing a needs assessment and community intervention study. It also has detailed descriptions of the data collection methods you might use. 
• Research Methods for Engineers (Thiel 2014): This ebook contains information about studies relevant to engineering. It also includes a large number of hypothetical research questions throughout the text you could use for inspiration.

 Local Data Sources

• University of Florida Institutional Data: The UF Office of Institutional Planning and Research shares public data about metrics like student enrollment, diversity demographics, graduation rates, and more. 
• City of Gainesville statGNV: Public data from the City of Gainesville on topics like traffic, public transportation, and infrastructure.

 Demographics and Consumer Data

• Demographics Now: Access to demographic information including income, housing, race, age, education, retail spending, consumer expenditures, businesses and more.
• United States Census Bureau: Public data on people and the economy in the US.
• Passport: Offers data on sales and expenditures among other important statistics and market analyses.

 Industry and Market Data

• Statista: Statistics and studies gathered by market researchers, trade organizations, scientific publications, and government sources on over 600 industries in 150+ countries. Statista reproduces key statistics as charts that can be downloaded as PDF's, Excel Files, Images, and PowerPoint slides.
• MarketLine: Information on companies, industries, markets, and also provides statistics.
• Hoover's Online: provides a quick way to find profiles for different industries. Information includes the latest news and market research reports. Tip: Use the Browse option to find industries by name and code.
• Mintel: Contains market research reports for the United States. 
• Want more? Check out the these market and industry research tutorials from the Business Librarian.