In January 2008, each student in FSoS 5014, Introduction to Quantitative Family Research Methods, was asked to summarize and evaluate information about a secondary data set used in the family field. The following summary was prepared by Janet Yeats.
Official Name of Study: National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START)
Study Purpose: To use state-of-the-art theories, methods and data from the social and behavioral sciences to improve understanding of the origins, dynamics and social and psychological impacts of terrorism.
Principal Investigators:
Working Group 1 – Terrorist Group Formation and Recruitment – Arie Kruglanski
Working Group 2 – Terrorist Group Persistence and Dynamics – Clark McCauley
Working Group 3 – Societal Responses to Terrorist Threats and Attacks – Kathleen Tierney
Years Data Collected: Global Terrorism Database began in 2001, gathering data from 1970-2004, in 2008, data will be updated through 2007.
Number of Waves: N/A
Participants: N/A
Types of Data: Publicly available, open-source material: books, journals, legal documents, news archives.
Strengths: Information can be analyzed by up to 128 different variables: date, incident location, attack type, target type, perpetrator type, weapon type, casualties. Interactive world map. Enormous amount of information available.
Accessibility of Data: Very accessible through the use of a Codebook created by the Database Development Committee made up of terrorism and data collection experts. Codebook can be obtained from website.
Usefulness: Helpful for researchers looking at the impact of terrorism on families.
Website: http://www.start.umd.edu/
Data Access: Inter University Consortium for Political and Social Research – icprs.umich.edu/cocoon/NACJD/STUDY/04586.xml.