The Scottish Government

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CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

Background

1.1 Scotland's enterprise in education agenda has been driven by the Scottish Executive's 'Determined to Succeed' strategy. This, in turn, forms part of the Scottish Executive's wider enterprise policy agenda and contributes to the top priority of growing the economy. Within the context of the education sector, part of this entails a renewed vision for Scottish schools and education. The National Priorities for Education ¹ and 'Ambitious, Excellent Schools ²' set out the challenge to local authorities ( LAs), their schools and partners to address:

• school leadership and ambition
• freedom for teachers and schools
• greater pupil choice and opportunity
• better support for learning
• tougher, intelligent accountabilities.

1.2 The Determined to Succeed ( DtS) strategy is one policy lever to addressing the above, through instilling a 'can-do, will-do' attitude in young people. In conjunction with other new policies - including A Curriculum for Excellence ³; Assessment is for Learning ⁴ and Schools of Ambition ⁵ - DtS offers a revitalised focus on how schools prepare their young people for success and achievement within and beyond the school environment.

1.3 The DtS strategy is based on an £86 million investment programme over five years (2003-2008) and comprises of four key themes: enterprising teaching and learning, entrepreneurial learning, work-based vocational learning and appropriately focused career education. Local Education Authorities, through the strategy, have responsibility to deliver a number of the DtS recommendations, as set out by the Review for Work and Enterprise (reference). They were required to design and implement an enterprise in education plan to address these recommendations, whilst ensuring delivery meets local needs.

1.4 York Consulting Limited ( YCL) and MORI Scotland were commissioned by the Scottish Executive Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning Department to carry out a 'Phase 2' ⁶ evaluation of DtS. This took place between January and December 2005. This final report presents the findings of the evaluation study.

1.5 The remainder of this Chapter sets out the background and approach to the study, specifically in relation to:

• the study aims and objectives
• study programme and research design - including the rationale and response rates for the various research elements
• report structure
• chapter summary points.

Study Aims and Objectives

1.6 The Phase 2 ⁷ was commissioned with the overarching objective of measuring the effectiveness and success of DtS, to inform policy, delivery and future commitment to the strategy. This was to be achieved by addressing the following:

• assessing how views, attitudes and perceptions amongst school children have changed, and whether the impact of DtS is likely to engender a 'can do, will do' attitude as well as cultural changes
• identifying changes in behaviour - the behaviour of pupils, teachers, headteachers and local authorities
• focusing on the different processes and roles adopted by teachers, schools, local authorities and parents and exploring what impact they have on the effectiveness of the policy.

1.7 The evaluation also seeks evidence of pupil enterprising attitudes and behaviours linked to the overall DtS strategy. In so doing, it also reviews the process of delivery.

Study Programme and Research Design

1.8 The evaluation study has a mainly quantitative focus. This influenced the overall shape and structure of the research design ( please see Appendix A for research tools) and the measures to be applied. The following provides an overview of the research design programme:

• desk research and local authority ( LA) consultation - to gain an overview of LA progress in implementing DtS, a range of documents were consulted which offered an overview of progress, especially in relation to the recommendations ⁸ underpinning the DtS strategy. This information has been supplemented by follow-up discussions with some LAs. LA Enterprise Development Officers ( EDOs) or their equivalents have been the most important contacts in these supplementary discussions
• quantitative surveys - targeted at teachers, parents and pupils (from special schools, primary pupils in P6 and P7 and pupils in S3-S5 from secondary schools). The surveys were designed to measure skills, attitudes, behaviours and general competences across a range of themes which are associated with DtS. Ratings were based on respondents' perceptions of pupil competence and - in the case of pupils - self-ratings. In addition, an on-line survey was devised to ask headteachers about their overall impressions of DtS
• headteacher telephone interviews - 6 LA areas were selected for telephone consultations with headteachers. These were intended to provide a qualitative overview of how DtS is supporting the school to achieve its aims and objectives. Headteachers were asked to indicate how - if at all - the strategy is impacting upon the school environment, in areas such as pupil attainment, motivation and behaviour
• case studies - the same 6 LA areas took part in case study visits. Visits were undertaken to special, primary and secondary schools and a wide range of audiences were consulted ( e.g. pupils, classroom teachers, school management, parents, business partners and local community partners) to ascertain the extent to which DtS was felt to be impacting upon pupil attainment and achievement and in what ways ( e.g. motivations and behaviour and curriculum performance).

Rationale for Study Methodology and Research Design

1.9 With the study's quantitative focus, it was necessary to design a methodology which would lend itself to numerical analysis. To achieve this, it was felt that a clearer articulation was needed - beyond the broad vision - of what constitutes the ' DtS' strategy. This would assist in ensuring that the research and consultation programme would take place against a common understanding of the various elements which make up DtS⁹.

1.10 To achieve this, DtS was defined in accordance with 7 key generic enterprising themes. These themes were identified and developed from an extensive desk research exercise, focusing on desired attitudes and behaviours which were commonly associated with enterprise in education. It was anticipated that these 7 themes could be readily identified by the key consultee groups. This aspect to research design was replicated across all research tools, and was especially the case in the surveys aimed at teachers, parents and pupils. The 7 themes and their related skills, behaviours, characteristics and attitudes have been detailed in Table 1.1 below. It should be noted that the 'outcomes' were not intended to be exhaustive, but to illustrate the breadth of the themes.

Table 1.1: Enterprising Themes and Related Outcomes

1.11 In relation to the teacher, parent and pupil surveys, a quantitative tool was designed for experimental testing. This tool was based on perceptions of competence across the 7 key, enterprise-related themes. An 'Index of Enterprising Attitudes and Behaviour' ( IOEAB) was constructed in order to provide a relative measure or 'score' across the individual themes and at an aggregated level. The background to the Index and the key findings from this area of the study are reported in Chapter Three.

1.12 The headteacher telephone interviews and case study work also applied the 7 enterprise-related themes. However, these elements of the research programme were more qualitative in nature. This was due to the consultative focus of this strand of analysis and the wide range of consultee groups who participated. While semi-structured topic guides were used for these consultations, the nature of the discussion was usually driven by the consultee, making aggregation of information less practical. However, key themes which emerged from the telephone interviews and the case study visits, have been reported in the main body of this report.

1.13 Headline findings from the headteacher web-survey have also been reported in the main body of the report. The emphasis on the headteacher perspective was felt necessary in offering a 'top-down' perspective of how DtS was operating within each school environment.

Response Rates across Research Tools

1.14 Table 1.2 below provides a summary of the target samples and corresponding response rates across each of the research tools applied in this study. This demonstrates that participation was very much in line with expectations, thus ensuring the validity and reliability of findings. With the exception of the headteacher web-survey, all research tools generated at least a 92% response rate. The lower 30% response rate for the web-survey was relatively high for this form of medium.

1.15 The high rates of response indicate both LA and school commitment and willingness to engage with the study. This is a particularly positive finding, given the significant research which takes place across the education sector and the additional workloads this can often present for LAs and schools.

Table 1.2: Overview of Response Rates for Research Tools

Teacher, Parent and Pupil Surveys

1.16 Details relating to the distribution of these surveys and the related demographics and management are set out in Chapter Three.

Headteacher Telephone Interviews

1.17 A total of 6 LAs were invited to take part in the headteacher telephone interviews. Approval was secured through EDOs, who were subsequently asked to select schools from within their area. This was undertaken in accordance with sampling criteria and aimed to capture the full spectrum of schools including those with different views and rates of progress in relation to the DtS strategy. While the LAs and schools have been anonymised for reporting purposes, the numbers of primary schools, secondary schools and special schools taking part are detailed in Table 1.3 below. It shows that, from an anticipated sample of 26 schools, 24 agreed to participate.

Table 1.3: Participation in Headteacher Telephone Interviews

School Case Studies

1.18 Higher secondary school representation was planned to reflect the fact that headteachers would be able to offer an overview of their experiences of DtS for a wider range of teaching staff (subject specialists).

1.19 The same 6 LAs provided an alternative sample of schools for the case study strand, based on the same sampling criteria as for the headteacher interviews. From an anticipated sample of 24 schools, 23 schools took part. Table 1.4 below shows the breakdown of these schools across the 6 LAs, in accordance with the 3 types of school. Once again, there was a higher emphasis on secondary schools. It was also felt that articulating the concept of enterprise in education could be more readily grasped and articulated by pupils in secondary schools than in primary or special schools.

Table 1.4: Participation in School Case Study Visits

1.20 Case study coverage was cast across a wide range of groups, in order to build a 'picture' of DtS awareness and impact, as perceived by these different groups. Schools were asked to devise a programme of consultations, in relation to key, relevant groupings. This flexibility was necessary for schools to demonstrate their different partnership arrangements and to account for availability at the time of case study visits. Table 1.5 indicates the total number of consultees taking part in the case study visits, in accordance with their grouping. It shows that, of the 341 individuals who participated in the case studies, 50% were pupils and a little over one-third school staff. The participation of the other partners was broadly in line with expectations and was approximately one sixth of total case study participation.

Table 1.5: Group Participation in School Case Study Visits

Headteacher Web-Survey

1.21 School or headteacher e-mail addresses were sourced for 2,307 headteachers. From these, 811 responses to the survey were received, representing a 30% response rate. Responses across the 3 school types were: 76% in primary schools, 14% in secondary schools and 6% in special schools. The remaining 4% was made up of combined primary and secondary schools and those who did not indicate their sector.

Report Structure

1.22 The remainder of the report has been structured as follows:

• Chapter 2 - local authority perspectives
• Chapter 3 - teacher, parent and pupil surveys
• Chapter 4 - headteacher perspectives
• Chapter 5 - school case study themes
• Chapter 6 - the school perspective - secondary, primary and special schools
• Chapter 7 - conclusions and recommendations.

1.23 It should be noted that the qualitative nature of the case study strand means that it has not been possible to report findings by numbers or percentages of responses. Rather, the terms 'a few, some, most and many' are applied to give an indication of the relative strength of opinion. This is not the case for the survey work (in the accompanying report) or the headteacher web-survey, where findings are reported as numbers and percentages.

Summary Points from Chapter One

Table 1.6: Summary Points from Chapter 1

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