EC0945 Scottish Election Study 2021-2025

1. Introduction

The University of Edinburgh has a requirement for surveys to be carried out to monitor Scottish Opinion on the long-term dynamics of electoral choice. The University is the lead research organisation for the Scottish Election Study 2021 – 2025 and this will be facilitated by our School of Social and Political Science. The surveys refer to the SCOttish Opinion (SCOOP) monitor with further information provided below.

2. SCOOP Introduction

The purpose of SCOOP is to track changing attitudes to leaders, parties and constitutional options between elections, with a common core of questions and rotating themes.

The SCOOP allows us to track (i) changes in attitudes between elections at a (ii) significant moment in Scottish political life given the ongoing fallout from Brexit and heavy pressure for an independence referendum. It allows us to (iii) provide essential data to the wider academic community on the relationship between constitutional and partisan preferences and (iv) explore voting behaviour not just in devolved elections but in General Elections too.

Conducted three times per year, the SCOOP surveys will occur roughly every four months (typically March, June and October in any given year). It is a cross-sectional survey, with a separate sample of 1200 each time it is conducted. In any given year, two of the three SCOOP surveys will be 10 minutes long. The third will be 15 minutes long. In the event of a UK General Election, the 15 minute SCOOP survey in the relevant year will become a post-election survey.

Questionnaire: The SES team will provide copies of questionnaires at least two weeks before fieldwork commences, with possible last minute changes to a handful of questions for the post-election survey depending on the results of the election. We would expect to see draft versions of the interface and opportunities for comment before fieldwork commences.

Fieldwork: We require the relevant consultant to identify a sample of respondents from an existing online panel, administer the survey to ensure a completed sample of 1200 respondents, deliver the resulting SPSS dataset, complete with relevant demographic and political weights within two weeks of the completion of fieldwork. A comment on panel size and spread (by region, partisan distribution, age and gender, as well as recently expansions and polling activity within the panel would be welcome. This will allow us to evaluate likely sample quality as well as any risks of panel conditioning. A comment on weighting procedures would be welcome.

We require the relevant consultant to identify a sample of respondents from an existing online panel, administer the survey to ensure a completed sample of 1200, deliver the resulting SPSS dataset, with demographic and political weights within two weeks of the completion of fieldwork.

Survey Deliverables

SPSS dataset, complete with variable names and labels, value labels, missing data specified, and with appropriate weight variable.