Qualitative Study of Democracy and Participation in Britain, 1925-2003: Teaching Data

<P>Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.</P><br>This is a qualitative teaching data collection.<br>
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Dr Jo Haynes (Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Bristol) has been using numerous data collections to support her teaching of qualitative research methods for several years. A key motivation was her desire to provide students with data, enabling more teaching time to focus on developing skills in data analysis. SN 5017 has been used in this way. This collection represents the subset of interviews specifically selected for teaching purposes. <br>
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The <i>Qualitative Study of Democracy and Participation in Britain, 1925-2003: Teaching Data</i> study is based on <i>Qualitative Study of Democracy and Participation in Britain, 1925-2003</i> (available under SN 5017). The teaching data collection is a subset of 15 of the interviews included in SN 5017 of a subsample of the Citizens Audit, a postal questionnaire conducted by Professors Seyd and Pattie at the University of Sheffield. The participants had all indicated that they had spent more than 20 hours engaged in activities, in clubs, associations, groups, networks or in supporting other people during the last month. The data collection includes both men and women, resident in cities, towns and villages in England, Wales and Scotland.<br>
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The interviews were selected as a subset of the original data collection to represent a variety of characteristics of the participants, including age, marital status, education and gender. Selection criteria also included data quality and the ability to divide the data collection into subsamples of a manageable size (e.g. by participant characteristics, geography or other features) for student projects.<br>
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Students were then asked to write 4,000 word reports based on their analyses of these subsamples. Dr Haynes believes that the key benefits of re-using data for students are the opportunities to evaluate critically the design, execution and conclusions of the original study and to practice developing their own new rationales for reinterpreting data. Her presentation included in the user guide, entitled <i>The Use of Qualidata Datasets in PG Unit</i>, contains more examples of data used, details on how to use the materials for teaching, and examples of original research questions paired with students' new research questions.<br>
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Further information is available in the study documentation which includes the original data collection user guide and additional notes for teachers.<br>
<br><br><B>Main Topics</B>:<BR><br>Main topics include: about self; participation in local community activies; volunteering; sense of belonging; trust in local authorities; evaluation of participation; democracy; rights; activism <br>