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6 - Social Surveys During the COVID-19 Pandemic
- Edited by Helen Kara, Su-Ming Khoo, National University of Ireland, Galway
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- Book:
- Researching in the Age of COVID-19
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 19 March 2021
- Print publication:
- 23 October 2020, pp 63-71
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Summary
The unfolding COVID-19 pandemic is resulting in unforeseen social and economic disruption, globally and locally. The rapid and unprecedented nature of the crisis requires the collection of contemporaneous research data. The disruptive nature of the pandemic produces practical challenges and methodological dilemmas for collecting suitable social science research data. In this chapter, we outline the problems, issues and opportunities associated with collecting research data using social surveys in this time of crisis.
There is a long history of using social surveys in social science research, dating back to Seebohm Rowntree's studies of York and Charles Booth's surveys of life and labour in London (Linsley and Linsley, 1993). The social survey is best considered as a methodological approach, rather than a single technique. Historically, questionnaires have been the main data collection instrument used in social surveys, but interviews are frequently used to collect data. Increasingly, a mixture of different modes of data collection are used, especially involving computers and new technologies (see De Leeuw, 2005).
Social surveys are designed to study statistical populations. Statistical populations are aggregates of specific entities or cases. A statistical population commonly contains too many cases to expediently study, and it is therefore more practicable to draw a sample (that is, a subset) of cases. Integral to the survey method is the collection and analysis of data from a sample of a larger statistical population. The social survey method is attractive because collecting data from a sample is more practical, and sample data have statistically efficient properties.
A social survey is a methodology that generates a matrix of research data. The usual components of the matrix are cases and variables. Variables are the result of collecting systematic measurements, and cases are the entities under investigation. Cases will commonly be individuals, but they could be households, families, businesses, schools, and so on. Integral to the survey method is the organized collection of systematic measures across a set of cases, to provide comparable data.
A fundamental aspect of constructing a survey sample from a statistical population is how well it represents, or reflects, the aspect of the statistical population under investigation.
Dementia knowledge and attitudes of the general public in Northern Ireland: an analysis of national survey data
- Patricia McParland, Paula Devine, Anthea Innes, Vernon Gayle
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- Journal:
- International Psychogeriatrics / Volume 24 / Issue 10 / October 2012
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 17 May 2012, pp. 1600-1613
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- Article
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Background: This paper provides an overview of the findings from the dementia module of the 2010 Northern Ireland Life and Times (NILT) Survey: an annual survey recording public attitudes to major social policy issues. Northern Ireland, in line with many other developed countries, recently released a Dementia Strategy. The opportunity to explore the knowledge and attitudes of the general public to dementia at a national level in Northern Ireland is timely and valuable. This paper reports on an initial exploration of these attitudes, based on bivariate analysis across demographic groups.
Methods: Data were analyzed using SPSS (Version 19). Descriptive and summary statistics were produced. A series of categorical bivariate relationships were tested (chi-square) and tests of association (Cramer's V) were reported. We discuss both knowledge-related findings and attitudinal findings.
Results: We found that the general public in Northern Ireland have a reasonably good level of knowledge about dementia. However, attitudinal measures indicate the stereotyping and infantilization of people with dementia.
Conclusions: This NILT module provides a unique source of data on attitudes to, and knowledge of, dementia. A key strength is that it provides statistically representative data with national level coverage. This information can be used to target public health education policies more effectively and to inform delivery of health and social services. The success of the module leads us to believe that it stands as a blue-print for collecting information on dementia in other social surveys.
seventeen - Decline of religion
- Edited by John F. Ermisch, Robert E. Wright
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- Book:
- Changing Scotland
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 20 January 2022
- Print publication:
- 01 July 2005, pp 261-276
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Summary
Introduction
There is general agreement among academics, religious leaders and the media that religion is becoming less important in British society (see, for example, Brierley, 1991, 1995; Smith, 1992; Bruce, 1995a, 1995b, 1995c, 2002; Jenkins, 1996; Brown, 1997, 2001; Gill et al, 1998; Bruce and Glendinning, 2002a, 2002b; Denholm, 2002; Kerevan, 2002; Reid, 2002a, 2002b; Swanson, 2002; Wormsley, 2002). Most measures of ‘religiosity’, such as church membership, church attendance and religious attitudes, are trending downwards, with the decline being particularly sharp since the early 1960s. However, there is less agreement concerning what factors are responsible for this decline. A recent review (Bourque and Wright, 2002) of empirical studies that have attempted to model such factors reached three main conclusions. The first is that the rate of decline varies by observed characteristics such as age, gender, socioeconomic status, marital status, presence of dependent children, denomination and geographic location. The second is that research in this area has been hampered by a paucity of high quality data and by the application of relatively unsophisticated modelling techniques. The third is that on aggregate this empirical research has not added greatly to the understanding of the causes of the decline.
It is our view that much can be learned about the factors causing this decline by comparing England with the devolved territories of Scotland and Wales. In this chapter, we restrict the focus to a comparison between Scotland and England using data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). The remainder of this chapter is organised as follows. The second part describes what variables relating to religion are included in the BHPS. The third part examines Scottish–English differences in these variables. In the fourth part of this chapter, logit regression models are estimated in an attempt to control for observed and unobserved factors that might ‘explain’ what appears to be a large difference in church attendance between Scotland and England. A brief concluding comment then follows.
Religion variables
The BHPS is a panel survey based on annual observations or ‘waves’, where the same people are interviewed year on year. As a result of attrition, some individuals leave the survey each year and new members replace these individuals. The BHPS can be used for both traditional cross-sectional analysis and for longitudinal analysis (that is, following the same individuals through time).
eight - Trends in absolute poverty
- Edited by John F. Ermisch, Robert E. Wright
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- Book:
- Changing Scotland
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 20 January 2022
- Print publication:
- 01 July 2005, pp 113-122
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Summary
Introduction
Unlike in the US, there is no ‘official’ poverty line in the UK. Although the Scottish Executive acknowledges that there is a “poverty problem”, it has not introduced a poverty line that could be used to direct their policies aimed at poverty reduction. The UK government does produce ‘low income’ statistics based on the so-called ‘Households Below Average Income’ (HBAI) approach (for example, DWP, 2003). However, the HBAI reports do not routinely include estimates broken down by region. In addition, there are well-known problems with the approach that it uses, which has led to a growing dissatisfaction with it among poverty researchers.
There is also no official poverty line in the European Union (EU). However, there has been a series of European poverty programmes aimed at comparing poverty across the member states. Much of this comparative research has been carried out using data from the European Community Household Panel study, of which the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) is a part, and utilises a poverty line set at 60% of the median equivalised disposable household income. There is a growing view that the EU should have an official poverty line and that it should be set at this level. In several member states, this poverty line is de facto official.
The purpose of this chapter is to examine trends in absolute poverty in England and Scotland in the 1990s using data from nine waves of the BHPS. In the BHPS, disposable income is not directly collected. However, it is estimated on a regular basis from gross income and other information collected in the survey (see Bardasi et al, 2002). With these variables, it is not only possible to replicate the HBAI estimates but also to explore with much rigour a variety of other interpretations and measures of poverty.
The BHPS also allows one to extend the analysis of poverty to an exploration of what can be termed the ‘dynamics of poverty’. Since the data is longitudinal in nature, and the same households and people are interviewed through time, it is possible to use the data to study movements into and out of poverty (see, for example, Cappellari and Jenkins, 2002).
three - Youth transitions
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- By Vernon Gayle
- Edited by John F. Ermisch, Robert E. Wright
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- Book:
- Changing Scotland
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 20 January 2022
- Print publication:
- 01 July 2005, pp 33-46
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Summary
Introduction: existing sources of British youth data
The inherently dynamic nature of the ‘youth phase’ implies that longitudinal data is needed to study it. A number of important sources of longitudinal data exist in Britain that can be used to study young people. The most notable of these resources are the birth cohort studies. The National Survey of Health and Development (NSHD), the National Child Development Study (NCDS) and the British Cohort Study (BCS70) are birth cohorts of children born in 1946, 1958 and 1970 respectively. The logic behind these surveys was to provide broadly comparable nationally representative birth cohorts for every generation after the Second World War. (However, it is debatable as to whether 12 years is the appropriate age gap between generations.) The birth cohort that should have commenced in 1982 never took place. These three birth cohort studies initially had a medical/health orientation (for example, perinatal mortality, neonatal morbidity and child development), but as they progressed they included more data appropriate to social science inquiry.
The NCDS and the BCS70 are more widely known than the NSHD within the British social science community. These three datasets suffer the usual problems associated with birth cohort studies. I suggest that they also suffer the major limitation that their data is of decreasing relevance to contemporary youth research, although they are still being analysed (see Bynner, 2002).
The light at the end of the tunnel is the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS). This new study will fill the gap of 30 years in the British birth cohort portfolio (see Smith and Joshi, 2002). It is proposed that the MCS will maintain the essential features of the earlier birth cohort studies. However, it has a different design and sampling strategy, so I remain sceptical about how easily the MCS data could be used in research projects designed to make comparisons with data from the earlier birth cohorts.
The Scottish Young People's Survey (SYPS) and the Youth Cohort Study (YCS) of England and Wales both began in the 1980s. It is sometimes suggested that they help to fill the gap left by the missing 1980s birth cohort study.