National Adult Learning Survey, 1997

<P>Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.</P><br>In autumn 1996, The Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) commissioned Social and Community Planning Research (SCPR) to carry out a survey of people's experiences of and attitudes towards learning. This survey followed three earlier studies which had also been conducted by SCPR, the first of which had been a survey of just over 1,400 individuals designed to explore attitudes to learning <i>Individual Commitment to Lifetime Learning : Individual's Attitudes</i> Park, SCPR (1994) (The data for this survey are held at the Data Archive under SN:3305); the second study <i>Monitoring Individual Commitment : Question Development</i> Campanelli and Rutherford, SCPR, (1995), had gone some way to developing the questionnaire to be used in the current survey; and the third piece of developmental work, <i>Feasibility Study for an Adult Learning Survey</i> Lewis and Smith, SCPR (1996) had collated the information needs of policy divisions in the DfEE and had examined the extent to which data needs could be met from existing data sources. <br>
<br>
The 'National Adult Learning Survey 1997' (NALS 1997) was intended to collect data which would meet the information requirements of the Department regarding adult learning, and to provide a basis for future monitoring of adult learning. In particular, the survey aimed to identify the extent to which people were taking part in different types of learning (both vocational and non-vocational), the cost of doing such learning, people's reasons for doing some learning, problems experienced, perceived benefits of learning and barriers towards taking part in learning. There had been several previous studies investigating participation in adult learning, notably the 1996 NIACE study <i>The Learning Divide</i>, but they tended to have been more limited in their scope than the current study. This SCPR survey was the first of its kind to collect such detailed information about both vocational and non-vocational learning.<br>
<br>
The second survey in the series, NALS 2000, conducted by Ipsos-RSL, is held under SN:4578. The third survey, NALS 2001, is held at the UK Data Archive under SN:4455, and was conducted by Social and Community Planning Research (SCPR) under its new name, National Centre for Social Research (NatCen).<br><br><B>Main Topics</B>:<BR><br>This dataset covers the following information collected from computer-assisted interviews with 5,653 adults aged between 16-69 (both recent learners and non-learners) in England and Wales. No one respondent was asked the full set of questions:<br>
Respondent's experience of full-time continuous education (age of leaving, qualifications obtained by that time).<br>
Details of current full-time continuous education (if respondent had not yet left).<br>
Experience of <i>taught</i> learning over the past 3 years: detailed questions for the three most recent such periods - start and end date, subject, how it was paid for, whether it was job-related, the extent of employer involvement, main place of teaching, problems experienced, things gained and so on; limited questions for any further periods of learning recorded on the calendar document - start and end date, whether job-related, employer involvement, qualifications obtained, main place of teaching.<br>
Experience of <i>non-taught</i> learning in the past three years.<br>
Careers, education or training advice or guidance received in the past three years.<br>
Respondent's life event history - e.g. marriage, moving home, losing a job, birth of children.<br>
Limited information about <i>taught</i> learning over the past ten years - dates, subject, whether a qualification was obtained, whether job-related, employer involvement.<br>
Limited information about people who returned to full-time education more than ten years ago - dates, why they returned, qualifications, and what they gained from it.<br>
Attitudes towards learning, training and education - the barriers which prevent people from learning, and the perceived usefulness of learning<br>
Classification details - information about current or most recent job, marital status, household composition, ethnic origin. <br>
In addition some sampling/administrative information (e.g. number of dwelling units at selected address, number of adults aged 16-69 at selected dwelling unit, government standard region) is included for each record.<br>
The data are presented in two files: one is based on individual respondents, the other is based on individual learning episodes.