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Research Methodology and Analysis

To assess the impact of Choices for Life qualitative and qualitative research methods were employed. These included the following;

• Self completion questionnaire with Primary 7 pupils
• Depth interviews with Primary 7 teachers
• Discussion groups with Primary 7 pupils who attended an event in 2006
• Discussion groups with first year pupils who attended an event in 2005

Self Completion Questionnaires

Pre-event and post-event questionnaires were sent to a sample of 57 schools across Scotland and compromised a mixture of those who were attending a Choices for life event and those that were not. Schools were instructed to complete one questionnaire before the event and one questionnaire after the event. Those schools who were not attending the event were given specific dates in which to complete the questionnaire to coincide with the events. The key themes of the questionnaires were assess knowledge and understanding of the issues covered by Choices for Life both before and after the event and to assess the exposure to and opinions of Primary 7 pupils in relation to drug use, drinking and healthy living.

Response

For the quantitative element 2,079 pre-questionnaires and 2,079 post-questionnaires were sent out to 57 schools in mid-May. 1,714 pre-event questionnaires were received and a total of 1,691 post-event questionnaires. The table below highlights the returns and response rate by police force area.

Table 3: Returns by police force area

Table 4: Returns by attended/not attended event

Three schools who had originally agreed to take part in the research did not complete either part of the study. The pre-questionnaires were not received from a further 5 schools and the post-questionnaires were not received from 3 schools.

Presentation and Interpretation of the Data

When interpreting the findings it is important to remember that the results are only based on a sample of the population, and not on the entire population. Consequently, results are subject to sampling tolerances, and not all differences between subgroups are therefore statistically significant. On the other hand, because the sample sizes are substantial, some differences between groups may be statistically significant, but because they are slight, may be relatively unimportant in policy terms. A more detailed discussion on statistical reliability can be found on page 47.

Where percentages do not sum up to 100%, this may be due to computer rounding, the exclusion of don't know/not stated categories or multiple answers. Throughout the report, an asterisk (*) denotes any value less than one half of a percent but more than nought and a hyphen (-) represents nought.

Discussion Groups and Depth Interviews

The Scottish Executive commissioned IpsosMORI to conduct discussion groups and depth interviews with teachers, Primary 7 and first year senior pupils to discuss their experiences of Choices for Life. Sixteen discussion groups with Primary 7 pupils, sixteen discussion groups with first year secondary school pupils and eight interviews with teachers were conducted in total. All groups and depths were with those who had attended a Choices for Life event in 2005 or 2006.

Each discussion group consisted of between 6 and 8 pupils. Therefore, a total of 224 pupils were involved in this stage of the research. Discussion groups were 'single sex', so half of the groups were composed of boys only and half were girls only.

All groups were completed between the 8 ^th and 29 ^th of June 2006.

Table 5: Qualitative fieldwork by police force area

None of the groups were conducted in Tayside as no schools within Perth & Kinross or Angus attended Choices for Life and Dundee City opted out of the research. Additional groups were conducted in Strathclyde (the largest of the 8 police force areas).

Topic Guide and Moderation

All of the discussion groups were moderated, and the depth interviews conducted, by experienced IpsosMORI researchers, using a specially designed discussion guide. The guide was structured around the main themes of Choices for Life to ensure participants had an opportunity to comment on the same range of issues as respondees to the self-completion element. The guide was designed by IpsosMORI in close consultation with the Scottish Executive.

Analysis of the Data

The data emerging from the discussion groups and depth interviews was analysed using a version of the Framework method developed by Social and Community Planning Research. There were 5 key stages to the analysis:

• Familiarisation with the data
• Developing a framework based around a small number of broad themes
• Indexing - developing a detailed structure of sub-themes and theme-specific topics
• Charting - linking transcripts to the index and providing structure to the data
• Mapping and interpretation.

Throughout the analysis, findings from the discussion groups and depth interviews were cross referenced with the self completion responses to allow for the identification of common and diverging themes, including any variation in the views of different groups.

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