The Scottish Government

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CHAPTER ONE Introduction

1.1 In 1997, the former Department for Education and Employment ( DfEE) commissioned the first National Adult Learning Survey ( NALS 1997), which explored participation in a wide range of learning experiences. This was a baseline study, established to meet the increased need for information on participation in 'lifelong' or 'adult' learning, and was followed by repeat surveys in 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2005. The NALS series has been used by the Department for Education and Skills ( DfES) to evaluate the effectiveness of their adult learning policies in England and Wales only.

1.2 In 2005, the Scottish Executive commissioned a Scottish 'boost' of the NALS study for the first time - prior to 2005, NALS covered England and Wales only. The aim of this Scottish 'boost' was two-fold:

• to provide robust data, representative of the Scottish adult population as a whole, which could be used to inform Scottish policy on adult learning, and
• to facilitate comparisons with findings on participation in adult learning in England and Wales.

1.3 This report presents findings from the Scottish data for NALS 2005. The focus of the report is on participation in adult learning in Scotland - a separate, more detailed, report of findings for England and Wales has been produced by the National Centre for Social Research for the DfES. However, comparisons with England and Wales, where relevant, are included in this report.

1.4 NALS 2005 was carried out by the Scottish Centre and National Centre for Social Research ³ on behalf of the D fES and the Scottish Executive.

Types of learning covered by NALS

1.5 The development of the concept of 'lifelong learning' and the accompanying expansion and diversification in post-compulsory learning from the mid-1990s required new research tools to define its boundaries and explore patterns of participation in 'adult' or 'lifelong' learning. The former DfEE commissioned a number of studies around this time to help develop the research tools needed to collect data on different types of learning (e.g. Campanelli and Rutherford, 1995; Lewis and Smith, 1996). This work culminated in the first National Adult Learning Survey covering England and Wales in 1997 and has informed the approach to measuring participation in 'adult learning' taken by the NALS series since. In this section, we provide brief technical details about the definitions of learning used by NALS.

1.6 The NALS series has traditionally used a broad definition of learning in order to capture a wide variety of learning experiences. Two broad categories of learning, taught and self-directed, are used in the NALS series.

Taught learning is defined as:

• Any taught courses meant to lead to a qualification
• Any taught courses designed to help develop skills used in a job
• Any courses, instruction or tuition in driving, playing a musical instrument, art or craft, sport or any other practical skill
• Any adult education classes including evening classes
• Any learning involving an individual working on their own from a package of materials provided by an employer, college, commercial organisation or other training provider
• Any other taught course, instruction or tuition

Self-directed learning is defined as:

• Supervised training while doing a job
• Time spent keeping up to date with work or professional developments
• Deliberately trying to improve one's knowledge about anything or learn a skill without taking part in a taught course

1.7 A series of questions was asked in NALS 2005 to establish whether respondents had undertaken any of these different types of learning, either in the previous three years, or since leaving continuous full-time education ( CFTE), whichever was shorter. ⁴

Therefore, throughout the NALS series a learner has been defined as:

A respondent who has left continuous full-time education and has taken part in at least one of the preceding taught or self-directed learning activities within the three years prior to the survey or since leaving continuous full-time education, depending upon whichever period was shorter.

1.8 Another key distinction made throughout the NALS series is between vocational and non-vocational learning.

Learning is classified as vocational if it was:

• Related to the respondent's job at the time of starting the learning, or
• Started in order to help with a future job, or
• Started in order to help with voluntary work.

Learning is considered non-vocational if it was:

• Not related to the respondent's job at the time of starting the learning, and
• Not started in order to help with a future job, and
• Not started in order to help with voluntary work.

Key features of NALS 2005

Overview of topics covered

1.9 The topics included in NALS 2005 were:

• Levels of participation in different types of adult learning, that is: taught, self-directed, non-vocational, and vocational (see above for definitions of these)
• The subject and mode of learning and how much time people spend on different learning activities
• Motivators, benefits and outcomes of learning
• Obstacles and incentives to learning
• Transport, childcare and community incentives to encourage learning
• Views about saving money towards learning and special bank accounts for this purpose
• Views about learning at FE colleges
• Use of ICT
• Attitudes to learning
• Guidance and advice on learning
• Awareness of learndirect scotland
• Assessment of difficulties with basic skills
• Key socio-demographic indicators (e.g., gender, age, ethnicity, disability, educational background and employment circumstances)

1.10 As discussed above, NALS has previously included only England and Wales. Some changes were made to the NALS questionnaire to adapt it to Scottish circumstances, but these were kept to a minimum in order to facilitate accurate comparisons with findings from England and Wales.

1.11 NALS 2005 collected information on participation in taught learning in a number of different ways:

• Respondents were asked whether they had participated in any courses of each of the types listed under 'taught learning' above
• Those who had taken part in taught learning were asked summary questions about each course they had taken part in over the last 3 years, or since leaving continuous full-time education (whichever was more recent)
• Those who had completed more than one course in the last 3 years were asked to select the one they found most useful, and were asked detailed follow-up questions about this course
• A module of detailed questions about up to two randomly selected courses taken over the past 12 months (in addition to the course selected by the respondent as 'most useful' from among those done in the previous 3 years).

1.12 These different strategies for collecting information about courses were required in order to provide time-series data for NALS (for England and Wales) and to meet the specific information requirements of the European Adult Education Survey ( AES - see below).

Background to the European Adult Education Survey ( AES) and inclusion of AES questions

1.13 An important innovation in NALS 2005 is the inclusion of questions from the European Adult Education Survey ( AES). Indeed, NALS 2005 was used to pilot the AES survey questions in the UK and will serve as a 'bridge' enabling comparisons between the traditional NALS time series and the AES. The latter is expected to be the model adopted for future adult education surveys in the UK and throughout Europe.

1.14 The new survey topics introduced in NALS 2005 to accommodate European comparisons include:

• Sources of funding and support for taught learning (i.e. employers, individuals or their families)
• The costs of taught course fees including registration or exam fees, books and equipment associated with the course
• Knowledge of foreign languages
• Nationality, country of birth and year when the respondent first arrived in this country

1.15 The AES uses different definitions of learning to NALS, although there is substantial overlap between classifications of learning types. The main body of this report uses the NALS definitions of learning, as described above. However, a brief overview of participation in adult learning based on AES definitions is provided in Annex A, in addition to further details of these definitions and how they relate to the NALS definitions. Many of the tables in this report are also reproduced in annexes A to E using the AES definitions of learning.

Summary of methodology

1.16 The survey methodology is described in detail in the Technical Report to the study. This section briefly summarises the sampling and weighting procedures.

1.17 The survey fieldwork was conducted between October 2005 and February 2006. A total of 4,983 interviews were conducted, comprising 993 in Scotland and 3,990 in England and Wales. The response rate was 53% in Scotland and 50% overall. 11,130 addresses in England, Scotland and Wales (2,100 in Scotland) were randomly selected from the Postcode Address File ( PAF) and interviews were attempted with one eligible adult in each household. 1.18 People were eligible to participate if they were (a) 16-24 and not in continuous full-time education ⁵ or (b) aged 25 or older. These specific eligibility requirements were agreed with the DfES in order to maximise comparability with previous waves of NALS and to fulfil requirements for the European Adult Education Survey. For the NALS analysis presented in this report, only those not in continuous full-time education have been included, in order to maximise consistency and comparability with the England and Wales report.

1.19 The data have been weighted to correct for different household and individual selection probabilities, and non-response. Data on the randomly selected courses have also been weighted to take into account the number of courses reported by a respondent.

1.20 Finally, different weights have also been calculated for analysing the data geographically for:

• Scotland only
• England and Wales only
• Great Britain (including Scotland, England and Wales).

Guidance on interpretation of the data

1.21 The percentages presented in the tables have been calculated from the weighted responding bases. However, the weighted and unweighted eligible bases (i.e. all respondents who were asked the question) and base descriptions are shown at the bottom of the table. Respondents who did not answer a question have been excluded from the calculations, unless stated otherwise.

1.22 The number of missing cases are not generally reported, as in the overwhelming majority of questions this figure is very low. However, a note is added at the bottom of the table if the number of missing cases is above 20. When a 'total' column is presented, as well as columns for different sub-groups, the sum of the sub-groups' bases might not be the same as the base of the 'total' column, because of missing cases.

1.23 Due to rounding, percentage figures may not add up to exactly 100%, but may total between 98% and 102%. A note is included when percentages add up to more than 100 because respondents could choose more than one reply.

1.24 The following symbols have been used in the tables:

* to indicate a percentage value of less than 0.5 per cent

- to indicate a percentage value of zero

[] to indicate a percentage based on fewer than 50 respondents

Base sizes for tables

1.25 Although the overall sample in Scotland (993) is large enough to facilitate robust analysis and inferences to the general population, in some cases where more detailed analysis has been undertaken the sample sizes for sub-groups are quite small. Where figures were based on sub-groups of less than 30 respondents (unweighted base), they have been omitted from the tables in this report.

Differences between Scotland and England/Wales

1.26 In order to facilitate comparative analysis of participation in learning across the UK, where possible and appropriate, comparator figures for England and Wales have been provided alongside those for Scotland. Caution should be applied in interpreting these tables, since differences between Scotland and England/Wales are often too small to be statistically significant. Where differences are significant, these are usually noted in the text.

1.27 In general, we have not included comparator figures for England and Wales for the more detailed sub-group analysis undertaken for this report. Differences in the sample sizes of these sub-groups between England and Wales and Scotland can make interpreting differences difficult. Again, if there are interesting and significant differences between different groups of respondents in England and Wales and in Scotland, these are generally noted in the text.

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