Guidance

Participation Survey: Frequently Asked Questions

Updated 9 November 2023

Applies to England

1. Participation Survey: Frequently Asked Questions

The Participation survey is a continuous push to web survey of adults aged 16 and over in England (with paper surveys available for those not digitally engaged). It began running in October 2021 and will be a main evidence source for DCMS and its sectors by providing statistically representative national estimates of adult engagement with the DCMS sectors.

This document provides further guidance on:

• Participation survey data availability
• Comparisons to Taking Part Survey
• Statistical interpretation
• Impact of the Covid-19 pandemic

Further guidance is also available for respondents at https://www.participationsurvey.co.uk/faq.html.

1.1 Participation Survey data availability:

1 . Are local authority estimates available?

Local authority estimates are available from the Participation Survey in 2023/24. The lowest geography where robust estimates can be obtained in other years is at county level (for example for Kent and West Yorkshire).

2 . Does the survey cover the UK?

The Participation Survey is only asked of adults in England. Currently there is no harmonised survey or set of questions within the administrations of the UK. Data on participation in cultural sectors for the devolved administrations is available in the Scottish Household Survey, National Survey for Wales and Northern Ireland Continuous Household Survey.

3 . Why are some questions only asked to online respondents?

We are limited on the length of the paper questionnaire. In order to encourage adults to respond via paper and not increase the burden, it is important to keep the length of the questionnaire to an appropriate length. This means we only include the core and highest priority questions on the paper version of the questionnaire. Unlike on the web questionnaire, we cannot utilise routing on a paper questionnaire and therefore a respondent may have a lot of questions which do not apply due to them answering no to a previous question and so we have needed to be mindful of this when designing the paper questionnaire. This enables us to minimise the burden on respondents whilst maximising the value of the information provided for DCMS.

4 . How long will the Participation Survey be running for?

The Participation Survey is currently in its 4th year of fieldwork. We periodically review our survey products to ensure they are still meeting user requirements. During February and May 2024, we ran a consultation exercise, considering options for the structure of our social surveys in the future, ensuring that meeting user needs and achieving value for money remains at the forefront of any survey design. Any changes would not impact the 2023/24 or 2024/25 Participation Survey or Community Life Survey. A summary of responses received from this consultation will be communicated in the published response to this consultation within 12 weeks of the consultation closing.

5 . Are estimates available for children or youth?

The Participation Survey currently is only asked to adults in England.

6 . When will data tables be published?

The Participation Survey is run throughout the year. To provide timely data to stakeholders, we aim to publish a summary set of statistics (in open data format tables) within 3 months of the end of the data collection period (and 4 months for the final quarter which is accompanied with the annual report which contains comprehensive commentary).

Survey in the field	Data published
April to June	September
July to September	December
October to December	March
January to March (accompanied with annual release)	July

These publication dates are provided in the DCMS Official Statistics calendar and provide a 12 month rolling publication schedule. If there is a need to change the planned publication date, then this is updated in the official statistics calendar and a change note added to gov.uk release calendar.

7 . Will the data be available to the public?

The annual dataset will be available to access via the UK Data Service (those who wish to access the data will need to register on the UK Data Service first).

1.2 Comparisons to Taking Part Survey:

8 . Can I compare the Taking Part Survey with the Participation Survey?

There are many common themes within both surveys. However there have been various changes between the two surveys, namely changes in:

• mode
• questionnaire content
• sampling approach & methodology,
• real world changes (such as COVID-19)

and therefore the direct comparison of the Taking Part Survey and Participation survey was not considered feasible. Further information is available in the Comparability of Taking Part and Participation Survey document.

9 . Why has the survey mode moved from face-to-face in the Taking Part Survey to push to web in the Participation Survey?

The Taking Part Survey came to a natural end (end of contract and the pandemic disrupted face-to-face fieldwork). Due to the uncertainty of the pandemic and how long it may last, the team opted for a push-to-web approach, as this would remain resilient in the face of any future government restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Conversely, if we selected a face-to-face approach, the risk of obtaining no, or very little data was high and this would be detrimental for our evidence base. Moving to a push to web methodology also has benefits around cost (face to face interviewing is expensive) which has enabled a greater sample size and therefore more geographical granularity in our estimates.

1.3 Statistical interpretation:

10 . If two figures are different, why is it not a statistically significant difference?

Statistically significant differences have been determined in this report on the basis of non-overlapping confidence intervals. This means that we can be confident that the differences seen in our sampled respondents are reflective of the population. Specifically, the statistical tests used mean we can be confident that if we carried out the same survey on different random samples of the population, 95 times out of 100 we would get similar findings. When sample sizes are smaller we can be less confident in our estimates so differences need to be greater to be considered statistically significant.

11 . What do you mean by a 95% confidence interval?

The upper and lower bounds presented in this report have been calculated using a 95% confidence interval. This means that had the sample been conducted 100 times, creating 100 confidence intervals, then 95 of these intervals would contain the true value. When the sample size is smaller, as is the case for certain demographic groups, the confidence intervals are wider as we can be less certain that the individuals in the sample are representative of the population. This means that it is more difficult to draw inferences from the results.

12 . Why is some data suppressed in the data tables?

Data may be suppressed due to small sample sizes within the variables themselves. The reason these data are suppressed in the data tables is to avoid the risk of disclosure. This prevents the risk of people being able to identify themselves or other respondents. The threshold for suppression is if the sample size is below 30, then the data are suppressed with an “x”.

1.4 Impact of the Covid-19 pandemic:

13 . How has Covid-19 impacted engagement?

The short answer is we don’t know, it’s difficult to measure and estimate the effect of the pandemic given that it is an ongoing and developing situation. There have also been multiple scenarios and time periods where there have been restrictions in place, which has forced some industries/sectors to close. Moreover, we don’t know how much the pandemic has changed people’s behaviours, e.g not going out or travelling due to the pandemic and in turn not engaging with the cultural sectors. Having said this, there are a number of surveys that trade and industry bodies, as well as academics, have carried out which give us an indication of how people intend to engage and their views on blockers and enablers for engagement. The quality of these vary, and they do not provide a direct comparison to a nationally representative survey like the Participation Survey.

14 . Is it useful to ask people about their activities in the last 12 months if COVID has disrupted certain venues opening?

The questionnaire acknowledges that for some people and for some activities, it has not been possible to engage due to Government restrictions. However, where it has been possible, we are interested in understanding who and how people have been engaging. We are also looking to capture engagement in activities that can be conducted at home and within Government restrictions, for example online activities.

15 . Are there any estimates for during the pandemic?

The Participation Survey began in October 2021. The Taking Part survey ended in March 2020 due to restrictions on face to face interviewing. However in May, June and July 2020, estimates of cultural, digital and sporting engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic were captured via the Taking Part COVID web panel data. This was a bespoke questionnaire, asking about participation in activities which could be done under social distancing guidance, was developed. The survey used respondents of the Taking Part web panel. These adults (16+) had agreed to join a longitudinal panel after being randomly selected to complete a face-to-face Taking Part questionnaire in recent years.

Data are also available from other studies run by organisations outside of DCMS. Some of these are linked below. Please note that differences in findings are expected given that the choice of mode of data collection, time period and sampling frame vary.

• Data from 9 waves of a survey of people’s consumption of culture through lockdown, commissioned by the PEC and the Intellectual Property Office (IPO), and carried out by Audience Net is available for the period of April to September 2020.
• The Office for National Statistics have published estimates on feelings of loneliness during lockdown
• Sport England have commissioned a survey where English people are asked about activity levels and their attitudes towards physical activity
• The Gambling Commission have published data related to consumer trends
• The Audience Agency have published a COVID-19 Cultural Participation Monitor which looks at the changing impact of COVID on the cultural attitudes and behaviour of the UK population
• Visit Britain has a COVID-19 consumer sentiment tracker which aims to understand domestic intent to take short breaks and holidays within the UK and abroad.