I am working on my sociology masters thesis, does anyone know where I can get access to longitudinal studies?

Question

I am specifically in need of gerentological surveys/interviews and impact of divorce on children. Please advice I am in dire need of accessing this information. Also, can I use surveys conducted by others that were federally granted to help support or refute my hypotheses? Please advice. Thanks a bunch in advance.

Answer 1

Congratulations on working towards your masters! That's quite a specific question (as it should be for a thesis!), and unfortunately I can't provide you with a terribly specific answer, although I can hopefully point you in the right direction. I know that the U.S Department of Health and Human Services conducts surveys such as this, and there is a good chance that you might be able to find something of use there. You can also check the department of child and social services.

As for your other question, unless otherwise noted, you can always use other peoples work to support your thesis (In fact, this often makes a much stronger thesis!) just be sure that you give them full credit and to cite your sources thoroughly. The fact that they were federally granted adds some legitimacy to them too. Good Luck! Hopefully I helped some!

Answer 2

First off, kudos to you for moving ahead to pursue a Masters degree ... please know that it's estimated (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2007) that less than 20% of the American workforce (of about 155 million people) have completed the requirements for a Masters degree ... as such, congratulations on almost being a part of such a unique cohort!

Before doing anything, I'd recommend speaking directly with your thesis advisor or any of the members that sit on your thesis committee.  Part of their role and responsibilities is to offer direction, advice, and [judicious] assistance as needed by the student.  In short, go to any one of them first.

As you realize, longitudinal studies are not the so-called "norm" simply because of the amount of time it takes to conduct them as well as the enormous expense associated with keeping track of the original sample population(s) over the course of years.  As such, a couple of the best places to look for such studies is i) federal government, ii) research universities, iii) institutes, and iv) other countries (again, primarily via government, universities, and institutes).

In addition, your school's library should have access to scholarly databases of research that are available to you as a student for free or a relatively low cost.  I have found over the past five years or so an increasing number of academic material -from all over the world- via the university library portal ... give that a try (e.g., WorldCat -a global catalog of library collections; or ERIC -the world's largest digital library of education literature; or EBSCOHOST -selections from the most acclaimed scholarly journals [the link below is specific to Gerontology]; even AARP has a web link for "Policy and Research" for aging ... all four mentioned here have web links below for your convenience).

I hope my POV is helpful and you can move forward in confidence -good luck!