Chapter 1 | Page 22 1.4.2 Data types and data analysis The types of data used by human rights researchers have widened over the years, especially with the increasing online accessibility of electronic data such as audio, video and other textual materials.46 Traditional field data, including interviews, ethnographic observations and government records, have also become more accessible and are increasingly used by researchers for various forms of analysis.47 Similarly, data analysis methods used by human rights researchers have come to include a variety of techniques, ranging from statistical analysis, modelling and correlational analysis to ethnographic analysis.48 All the data used in the present study already existed in the form of State reports, Concluding Observations, General Comments and reports of Special Rapporteurs as well as other institutional reports. The original data contained in these reports can be analysed and interpreted using many different frameworks and techniques. Hence, they can be said to represent valid and reliable data from original sources even though they have not been directly collected from the field. The context-rich and readily available State reports were an invaluable source of data that could be examined to interpret the ways in which States perceive their ESC rights obligations in policy and practice. Similarly, the Concluding Observations of the ESCR Committee provided rich interpretive material on how State compliance expectations are being developed in key policy areas relevant to ESC rights realisation in the respective States. Because the focus here was to collect the widest possible range of evidence on State practice, the use of extant official data and reports from a large 46 Data analysis practices among human rights scholars is comprehensively examined by Isioma Elueze Lu Xiao and Jillian R Kavanaugh, 'Human Rights Researchers’ Data Analysis and Management Practices' (Paper presented at the ASIST 2014, Seattle, 1-6 November 2013) <https://www.asis.org/asist2014/proceedings/submissions/ papers/72paper.pdf>. 47 See for example, Earl Babbie, The Practice of Social Research (Wadsworth, Belmont, 2010). 48 Xiao and Kavanaugh, above n 46.