The current core question set contains 22 items covering 7 topic areas: people and places, identity, health, housing, education, employment and transport. Thirteen questions have been finalised and they can be see here: Finalised Core Questions .
Using standard questions across all surveys will bring several benefits:
- Increased comparability across surveys;
- The costs of designing surveys will be reduced;
- Survey managers can be confident that survey participants understand what is being asked because the questions have been thoroughly tested;
- Answers are grouped in such a way to ensure the results produced are useful for analysis;
- The risk of offence is reduced when asking questions about sensitive subjects because questions have been widely consulted on.
Furthermore, as progress is made toward aligning the major Scottish Government cross-sectional surveys in terms of design, methodology and timing it will become possible to pool core question data from all the surveys into one dataset. This dataset will have such a large sample that it will be possible to produce estimates for small population groups (e.g. ethnic minorities) and much more precise data at sub-national level. Obviously this will only be possible for questions that are in all the surveys - the 'core questions'. It will therefore be necessary that, following this review, all the major surveys adopt all the core questions as mandatory.
Currently there are 'core questions' which are not included in all the major cross-sectional surveys (such as 'residence one year ago') and questions which are included in most surveys which possibly should be part of the core (such as smoking). Furthermore, since the original list was written, there have been many changes to the policy landscape which may have implications for data requirements.
In light of this, we are currently reviewing whether the questions in the core question set are the most appropriate, whether any of them should be removed, and whether any others should be added, and we are consulting all users for their views.
Please note that this consultation is about core questions only and not the content of all surveys. The first round of consultation in identifying future priorities for the Scottish Household Survey is currently being finalised. Later this year, dependent on finalising any new survey design, the SHS team will undertake further consultation around topic and question requirements. The Scottish House Condition Survey completed a major physical survey content review in 2009 and will review the social survey content in early 2011. The Scottish Health Survey will also be consulting on questionnaire content in 2011. To be kept informed about all survey reviews, please ensure you are signed up to ScotStat and have ticked the appropriate boxes in the "areas of interest" page.
Core Question Criteria
In order to be included in the Core Question Set, items must meet AT LEAST ONE of the following criteria that have been agreed for this review:
CRITERION 1: There must be a clearly defined and significant user need for the data at a sub-local authority level.
In other words, the data must be necessary at a sub-Local Authority level in order to inform the direction of a high-profile policy, monitor a high-level and strategic outcome, or inform resource distribution. If the policy, outcome monitoring, or resource decisions do not depend on sub-local authority level data, i.e. if local authority level data are 'good enough', then this criterion is not met.
Similarly, if data are available from another source, such as an administrative system, then this criterion is not met.
CRITERION 2: The data must relate to a rarely occurring population characteristic that requires pooled samples to estimate.
One of the purposes of having a core set of questions is to allow for the data from all surveys to be 'pooled' into one large dataset with a very large sample size, so estimates of rarely occurring characteristics/events can be calculated and data for small communities (such as particular religions or ethnic groups) can be produced.
If there is an important policy relating to a rarely occurring characteristic or small community that requires data to inform it, then this criteria will be met, but if there is no pressing need to have accurate data relating to the characteristic then the criterion will not be met.
CRITERION 3: All the major Scottish Government cross sectional surveys currently require the question as a key classification variable.
If there is a data item already included in all the major surveys which is required to understand and interpret other items, then this criterion will be met. If the item is not essential then this criterion will not be met.
Question and Topic Coverage in the Major Cross-sectional Scottish Government Surveys
To see which topics are currently covered in the Scottish Household Survey, Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, Scottish House Condition Survey and Scottish Health Survey, and to see which surveys have already adopted core questions, click here.
The Core Question Review Consultation closed on 14th May. The responses are being considered and the recommendations will be posted here by the end of July.