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PUBLIC ATTITUDES TO THE ENVIRONMENT IN SCOTLAND - TECHNICAL REPORT
Chapter 1 - NATURE AND COVERAGE OF THE SURVEY
A number of surveys have been conducted over the past decade or so in connection with environmental issues. The findings of these were summarised for the Scottish Executive in a recent scoping study,
1 prior to the commissioning of the 2002 Environmental Attitudes Survey (EAS, 2002). The previous surveys include:
A survey undertaken in 1991, by the then Scottish Office, looking at the attitudes of the general public to environmental issues. This specific survey was designed to provide an overview of a number of environmental issues from drinking water quality to global warming
The Scottish Sustainability Survey (Scottish Office 1995) - exploring what the concept of sustainable development meant to the general public
The Eurobarometer Survey, commissioned by the European Commission in 1999, to provide a clearer picture of how the people of Europe perceive various aspects of the environment
A survey on environmental issues conducted via an omnibus in 2000, covering the seriousness of some environmental issues and attitudes to the environment
As a consequence of this scoping study, the Scottish Executive formed the view that much of the above data was either out of date or limited in its coverage of current issues. As such, there was a need to commission a survey of the general public's knowledge of, and attitudes towards, the environment in Scotland. The study, commissioned in 2001 and completed in 2002, is to be used as a baseline for future surveys. The survey was designed to cover a much wider set of environmental issues than previous surveys had encompassed. It has also been undertaken on a much larger scale than earlier studies, with over 4,000 interviews being conducted.
The EAS 2002 was defined with a number of key objectives in mind, namely:
to provide data on the environmental knowledge, actions and attitudes of a sample of the Scottish population;
to provide a baseline measure of knowledge, actions and attitudes which can be used for comparative and monitoring purposes against future surveys;
to allow for analysis of the data by a number of key population sub-groups and by geographic location;
to chart how attitudes to the environment have changed since the 1991 environmental survey, to identify peoples current concerns and how these have changed from 1991; and
to measure what the Scottish population is doing to help protect the environment and what they think the Government and others should be doing in this capacity.
The EAS made use of some questions from previous surveys and this will allow comparisons to be made with England and Wales, where the more recent surveys have been conducted. However the remit of the EAS extended to more than just a comparison with other parts of the UK. The survey also included modules that covered a wide range of topics of particular policy relevance in Scotland, for example, the founding of two National Parks in Scotland. The range of question modules developed covered sustainable development, radioactive waste, wildlife protection, flooding, national parks, energy production, recycling and litter and dog fouling as well as a wide range of general issues. Two versions of the questionnaire were developed, with some of the more general issues appearing on both versions of the questionnaires, while other subjects were asked of only half the total sample. Full details are provided at chapter 3.
There are few instances where questions similar to those used in the Scottish Office's 1991 study have been used.
The EAS 2002 was of interest to, and in part designed by Scottish Natural Heritage and the Forestry Commission.
Data produced by this survey is likely to be used as a baseline for environmental policy formulation and evaluation as well as being fed into the wider environmental debate.
Fieldwork took place from February 2002 to June 2002 and involved interviews with 4,119 people aged 16 years and over from an issued sample of 6,316 addresses across 800 sample points on the Scottish mainland and islands. The response rate was 65%.
This report outlines the technical approach followed for the EAS 2002. It is divided into the following chapters:
Chapter 2 discusses the sample design and respondent selection
Chapter 3 covers the questionnaire design
Chapter 4 covers the fieldwork aspects of the survey
Chapter 5 discusses data coding and preparation
Chapter 6 explains the data weightings
Chapter 7 presents the complex standard errors and design effects.
The appendices are as follows:
Appendix 1 outlines Scottish Mosaic classifications
Appendix 2 shows an example of a Sample Issue Sheet (SIS)
Appendix 3 presents the final survey questionnaires
Appendix 4 provides details of outcome codes, analysed by rural/urban indicator
Appendix 5 details the coding and edit checks introduced on the data set.
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