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CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Aims and Objectives
1.1 This report presents the findings from the first
year of the Scottish Executive's Core Module. The two main
aims of the module are:
- to help maintain time series data on key questions
of Scottish interest, mainly relating to devolution and
broad constitutional issues, and
- to help inform the Scottish Executive's policy
evaluation and policy making functions by providing
robust measures of public attitudes towards the key
devolved policy areas.
1.2 Some of these topics have been covered by the
Scottish Social Attitudes survey on a number of
occasions since it began in 1999
1. Funding for earlier questions about devolution mainly
came from research councils and foundations and the core
module was commissioned by the Scottish Executive Office of
Chief Researcher (
OCR) to ensure that the topics would
continue to be covered after this initial grant funding
came to an end. The topics covered in this report address
the following broad issues:
- How much do people
know about the Scottish Executive and
Westminster governments?
- Who is most
trusted to look after Scotland's best
interests: the Scottish Executive or Westminster?
- In what ways do people get
involved in the political process and
is the system judged to be receptive to their
input?
- Is
devolution delivering what people
hoped it might?
- How do people rate the performance of
public services in Scotland?
- Do the Scottish Executive's
priorities match those of people in
Scotland?
- What do people think about their
local area?
1.3 The
Scottish Social Attitudes survey typically covers
around five main topics a year. The other topics included
in the 2004 survey were: family law, environmental justice,
young people and crime, and drinking and smoking.
Reporting conventions
Chapter structure
1.4 The chapters within this report follow a similar
format. Each starts by stating the key questions addressed
within it. This is followed by an introduction which
provides a brief overview of the topic matter and presents
the survey questions on which the analysis is based. A set
of key points highlighting the chapter's main findings can
be found at the end of each.
Data analysis and presentation
1.5 Two types of analysis are presented in the report.
The tables and figures present the findings from simple
bivariate analyses between two variables. To keep the
presentation simple, for some variables (chiefly age,
education and social class) the tables only show the
results for a selection of categories. For example, the
views of 18-24 year olds and those over 65 are shown but
the intervening age groups have been omitted. Full versions
of the tables are available from the
Scottish Centre for Social Research on
request.
Appendices
1.6 In many instances the decision as to what to present
in each table was taken after multivariate modelling using
logistic regression had been carried out.
Annex 1 of this Report presents
the full results of these analyses while the main body of
the report simply comments on their findings.
Annex 2 contains a description
of logistic regression.
1.7
Annex 2 describes the technical
details of the 2004 survey on which this report is based
and has further descriptions of the analysis techniques
used. Details of some of the classification variables used
in the analysis, such as social class and urban / rural
residence, are also included here.
Annex 3 contains the 2004
survey questions and responses.
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