Out of school care parent survey: report

2. Methodology

The research was conducted using a quantitative survey approach, comprising telephone interviews with 2,002 parents of 5 to 13 year old children.

The survey sample comprised a targeted set of landline and mobile telephone numbers, taken from national consumer survey data. It consisted of individuals who had agreed to be recontacted for research and marketing purposes. Quotas were set by age of child and, to ensure the achieved sample was broadly representative of the population of parents of children aged 5 to 13, by the working status of parent(s), area deprivation (SIMD^[9]), and region. The questionnaire included a screener question to ensure the participant was the parent best placed to talk about their child’s childcare arrangements. The majority (70%) of parents who took part in the survey were female.

The survey questionnaire was designed by Ipsos MORI in close consultation with the Scottish Government. Interviews were conducted by Ipsos MORI telephone interviewers, using Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI), between 9 May and 2 June 2019. The interviews lasted an average of 6 and a half minutes.

The survey questionnaire included questions on parents’ use of and views on out-of-school care and their reasons for using/not using this type of care. As a short quantitative survey, the aim of the research was to provide top-level data rather than to explore the issues in any depth.

Since most parents do not commonly use the term ‘Out of School Care’ when discussing their childcare arrangements, throughout the questionnaire and this report the terms ‘childcare’ or ‘care’ have been used instead. The survey questionnaire is attached as Appendix A.

During data processing, the survey data was weighted by working status, area deprivation, region and rurality^[10], using latest estimates from the Scottish Household Survey.

All aspects of the study were carried out to the international quality standard for market research, ISO 20252.

Presentation and interpretation of the findings

The survey findings represent the views of a sample of Scottish parents, and not the entire population of Scotland’s parents. As such they are subject to sampling tolerances meaning that differences between sub-groups may not always be statistically significant. Throughout the report, we have commented only upon differences which are statistically significant (at the 0.05 level) i.e. where we can be 95% certain that they have not occurred by chance^[11].

Where percentages do not sum to 100%, this may be due to computer rounding, the exclusion of ‘don’t know’ categories or multiple answers. Aggregate percentages (e.g. "very interested/somewhat interested") are calculated from the absolute values. Therefore, aggregate percentages may differ from the sum of the individual scores due to rounding of percentage totals.