LibGuides: Community College Leadership: Statistics

Evaluating Statistics

Statistical data will lend credibility to your research by providing facts and figures supporting your position. Therefore, statistics may be important to include in your class assignments, research papers, and theses. However, statistical data is not always easy to find since there is no single source for this type of information. Statistics may come from scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers, reports, websites, books, statistical databases, and more. The guide below outlines several techniques and resources for finding and evaluating statistical data.

Inclusion of erroneous statistical data can harm the credibility of your research. Therefore, it is very important to evaluate the source of your statistical information. The following questions will help you to evaluate the reliability of statistical information.

Who is the author of the source that presents the statistics? What are the author's credentials? Is the author an authority on the subject? Could the author be presenting bias?
What is the date of the statistics? How current are they? Are they relevant to the time period that you are interested in?
Who is the intended audience?
What type of publication is the data published in? And is the data clearly represented?
Can the data be cross-checked in other reliable sources?
Can the statistics be verified? Do the methods used and data presented seem valid?

Statistics

American FactFinder
Provides access to data about the United States, Puerto Rico and the Island Areas. Includes data on field of degree, school enrollment, school type, and vocational training.
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Principal Federal agency responsible for measuring labor market activity, working conditions, and price changes in the economy. Includes data on education and training requirements, earnings and unemployment by educational attainment, education spending, and more.
Child Care & Early Education Research Connections
Data sets from series and individual studies focusing on child development available for download and online analysis.
ChildStats.gov
Provides statistics and reports on children and families, including: population and family characteristics, economic security, health, behavior and social environment, and education.
Child Trends DataBank
Provides national trends and research on more than 100 key indicators of child and youth well-being, including health, social and emotional development, income, education, family, and community demographics and characteristics.
Educational Policy & Data Center
Provides global education data, tools for better data visualization, and policy-oriented analysis aimed at improving schools and learning in developing countries.
Education GPS
Provides the latest information and data on how countries are working to develop high-quality and equitable education systems.
Education Policy and Data Center
Provides global education data, tools for data visualization, and policy-oriented analysis aimed at improving schools and learning in developing countries.
Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS)
The primary source for data on colleges, universities, and technical and vocational post-secondary institutions in the United States.
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)
Fulfills a Congressional mandate to collect, collate, analyze, and report complete statistics on the condition of American education; conduct and publish reports; and review and report on education activities internationally.
NationMaster: Education
Vast compilation of data from hundreds of sources, including the CIA World Factbook, UN, and OECD.
OECD.Stat
Database covers the following for OECD member nations: enrollments; graduates and new entrants by sex, age and level of education; teaching staff; and expenditure.
Rankings of States and Estimates of School Statistics
National Education Association provides facts about the extent to which local, state, and national governments commit resources to public education.
U.S. Census Bureau
Education indicators include attainment, enrollment, finances and employment in public schools and financial aid.
U.S. Department of Education: Data & Statistics
Provides detailed information about education-related surveys and program areas. Directs users to NCES website for access to most data.
U.S. Education Dashboard
Shows what the U.S. Department of Education considers to be important indicators of how the nation, and each state, is progressing on the outcomes necessary to achieve the national goal of once again having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.
UNESCO Institute for Statistics
Official and trusted source of internationally-comparable data on education, science, culture and communication. Browse stats by theme, indicator, or country.
World Bank EdStats
Comprehensive data and analysis source for key topics in education such as access, completion, learning, expenditures and equity. It holds data from various sources in the following data queries.
World Bank Open Data
Free and open access to global development data. Browser by indicator to view the Education statistics.