Social and health scientists collect data and then analyze that data to answer important research questions. Thankfully, it is sometimes possible to answer important research questions using data that someone else has already collected. In fact, there are some research organizations that specialize in collecting large datasets on various topics, who then make these datasets available to other researchers across the globe.

These freely available datasets can be a great way for people, who don’t have the resources to collect their own data (e.g., students), to conduct research.

We’ve put together an incomplete List of Free Archival Psychology & Social Science Public Datasets with links to the website for each.

This list may be especially helpful to psychology undergraduate students in research methods courses who need to find a dataset to analyze. Feel free to suggest additional datasets you think we should add to this email by contacting Dr. Hammer.