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CONCLUSION

a) The questionnaire

A key objective of this study was to develop a reliable instrument for analysing the distance travelled by individuals and communities in relation to the development of social capital. In particular we aimed to assess the nature and scale of the contribution of CLD to this activity on a retrospective basis.

One of the ways we attempted to establish a causal relationship was by interviewing people who had only been involved in projects for not less than three months and no more than one year. Any changes taking place in their experience might then be reliably related to their involvement with the project. However, control of the timeframe was not always possible and some of our respondents had been involved for over one year and had participated in other projects too. Table 1 below shows a summary of this.

Table 1 Period of attendance at the group and involvement in other groups

However, all respondents were asked specifically about the changes, if any, that had been made which they attributed to their involvement with the CLD project where we contacted them. During the interview prompts were also used, when necessary, to remind interviewees that the questions were being asked to determine whether changes had taken place since they started the programme. Because these measures might be unreliable, an additional control was to check the response of the sample with expectations of change held by project workers. This was to document the change efforts the projects aimed to achieve rather than to verify individual accounts. Mismatches between the accounts of participants, and those of workers in the projects, would alert us to other potential causes of change. We therefore collected official statements about the aims of the projects and interviewed an appropriate member of staff. This process of triangulating the data was reliable in that we found no obvious mismatches between the responses of participants and the expectations of change identified by project staff. The outputs of the projects correspond to a large extent with the outcomes experienced by participants, which suggests a causal relationship and not merely a correlation.

b) Refining the questionnaire

Based on the experience of the pilot study we believe the refined questionnaire is a useful research instrument, which a wide variety of CLD projects could adapt and use in very different contexts. If projects think that an indicator is inappropriate then they can omit it or if they want to add a different indicator the instrument can act as a template for more bespoke use. The questionnaire will provide qualitative evidence on how and if projects are meeting their stated aims for participants. The scoring mechanism (described in appendix 4) can also give a useful indicator of the depth of change that participants have experienced. To ensure the questionnaire is 'user friendly' we have refined it by reducing the number of questions asked for each aspect of the relevant indicators.

We eliminated questions that had few responses, those that were asking similar things and those that appeared to be ambiguous and then made sure that each of the four sections had equal numbers of questions. This standardisation and refinement will reduce repetition and the time needed to undertake the interviews and provide a more concise and accurate assessment of the four components of social capital. The revised questionnaire is contained in appendix 4. The sequencing of the questions has also been considered so that they flow better than in the original version. We have also revised the heading on civic participation which is now 'social and civic participation'. The questions under this heading have been regrouped in a coherent way.

The ability to select questions relating to building social capital (in areas appropriate to the aims of projects) means the revised instrument can be adapted to a variety of different circumstances. Also a simple scoring mechanism can be used to judge the extent of change experienced by participants and this can be fine tuned by plotting change on a continuum rather than simply adding numerical scores. This is specified in appendix 4.

c) The development of social capital

Another major objective of the study was to provide a commentary on the nature and scale of the contribution of CLD activity to building social capital.

The impact of the projects on people's lives and experiences are without doubt positively contributing to their social capital in terms of extending social networks, trust, civic engagement, power to achieve things, and the bridges they are able to build with individuals and groups within and outwith their communities. The research confirms McKenzie and Harpham's (2006) conclusion that community-based learning can create a stronger sense of personal and social efficacy. There are clear and definitive changes in bonding and bridging social capital as well as civic engagement. The positive experience of involvement and enhanced confidence and skills is likely to encourage greater participation in other civic groups and community activities.

We need to qualify this, however, by recognising what works for some people may not work for all. A range of variables that are particular and distinctive to an individual's experience always mediate the outcomes for participants. Also an unintended outcome is that the experience of involvement can lead to more selective forms of participation through a more astute awareness of the tokenistic exercise of power.

Overall, the experience of respondents shows an increase in personal and interactional experiences of empowerment, which have a positive affect on their lives, and has enabled some groups involved in collective activity to have an impact on power relationships. However, building social capital has done very little to make a difference to systemic inequalities of power and the material realities of people's lives. Marginalised groups are undoubtedly benefiting from their overall experience of learning in communities and are able to express themselves more, but is anybody listening?

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