Playground to Politics
[Page last updated 13 July 2013]
A study of values and attitudes among fifth formers in a North London comprehensive school.
This survey of teenage attitudes and opinions in a North London comprehensive school (11-18 mixed) was designed and conducted, under my guidance and supervision, by three of my sophomore students as part of their group research dissertation for BA Applied Social Studies (Social Research) at the Polytechnic of North London (PNL, now part of London Metropolitan University). . It aimed to discover something about pupils' future expectations and awareness of, and attitudes towards, various current social issues and problems, particularly racism and sexism. It replicates various items and scales from other work (Wilson-Patterson, Eysenck, Himmelweit, Srole-Christie) particularly the St Paul's Girls senior pupils study (Feb 1973) some of which were also used in the SSRC Survey Unit Quality of Life surveys 1971-75.
The self-completion questionnaire was completed in December 1981 by all fifth form pupils present on the day of the survey (N=142). It was administered during time-tabled Social Studies classes and, time permitting, was followed by discussion with class teachers and the PNL students of the issues covered in the survey.
Given the particularly high quality of this project, a user manual was prepared by John Hall and Alison Walker for use with the postgraduate Survey Analysis Workshop and the undergraduate course Data Management and Analysis. It serves as model documentation for similar small survey projects.
A study of values and attitudes among fifth formers in a North London comprehensive school.
This survey of teenage attitudes and opinions in a North London comprehensive school (11-18 mixed) was designed and conducted, under my guidance and supervision, by three of my sophomore students as part of their group research dissertation for BA Applied Social Studies (Social Research) at the Polytechnic of North London (PNL, now part of London Metropolitan University). . It aimed to discover something about pupils' future expectations and awareness of, and attitudes towards, various current social issues and problems, particularly racism and sexism. It replicates various items and scales from other work (Wilson-Patterson, Eysenck, Himmelweit, Srole-Christie) particularly the St Paul's Girls senior pupils study (Feb 1973) some of which were also used in the SSRC Survey Unit Quality of Life surveys 1971-75.
The self-completion questionnaire was completed in December 1981 by all fifth form pupils present on the day of the survey (N=142). It was administered during time-tabled Social Studies classes and, time permitting, was followed by discussion with class teachers and the PNL students of the issues covered in the survey.
Given the particularly high quality of this project, a user manual was prepared by John Hall and Alison Walker for use with the postgraduate Survey Analysis Workshop and the undergraduate course Data Management and Analysis. It serves as model documentation for similar small survey projects.
Questionnaire
Questionnaire [pdf, 13pp, 4.63 mb]
Facsimile of self-completion questionnaire administered to 5th form pupils present on the day of the survey.
Facsimile of self-completion questionnaire administered to 5th form pupils present on the day of the survey.
SPSS saved file
fifthx.sav [*.sav, 0.06 mb]
SPSS saved file with full data dictionary, but no derived variables. If you want to use it yourself, you will need to be a licensed user of SPSS or a registered user on a licensed site. It is used for the tutorials in section 3.5 Derived variables (COUNT and COMPUTE).
SPSS saved file with full data dictionary, but no derived variables. If you want to use it yourself, you will need to be a licensed user of SPSS or a registered user on a licensed site. It is used for the tutorials in section 3.5 Derived variables (COUNT and COMPUTE).
Raw data files
fifthdat.txt [80-column ASCII, 46 kb]
Original raw data file (3 records per case) Includes alphanumeric data which has to be converted.
card4.txt [80-column ASCII, 5 kb]
Multi-punched data. SPSS could not then read column binary data. Multi-punched answers were spread out on this 4th record.
Original raw data file (3 records per case) Includes alphanumeric data which has to be converted.
card4.txt [80-column ASCII, 5 kb]
Multi-punched data. SPSS could not then read column binary data. Multi-punched answers were spread out on this 4th record.
User manual
User manual [pdf, 8.5 mb]
Question by question codebook containing frequency counts for all variables and basic coding information.
Question by question codebook containing frequency counts for all variables and basic coding information.