The NatCen Blog

Here we’ll be talking about our research in the context of the latest news, opinion and
analysis through comments from our team of experts. We’d love to hear from you, so post comments or get in touch with us.

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• Posted on 18 September 2020 by Gillian Prior, Director, Surveys, Data and Analysis

  I hear you knocking…

  

  In this article Gillian Prior, our Head of Surveys, Data and Analysis, considers a new NatCen panel survey examining the public’s views on face-to-face interviews, as well as the current possibilities for restarting face-to-face fieldwork on large-scale surveys.

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  Tags: Covid-19, NatCen Panel, fieldwork, methods, safety

• Posted on 21 August 2020 by Martin Wood, Director of Longitudinal Surveys

  Longitudinal methods: innovation and development during Covid-19

  

  The UK’s longitudinal social research studies have stepped forward during the Covid-19 crisis to offer a means of understanding the outbreak’s impact on work, family life, wellbeing and health-related behaviour. 

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  Tags: Covid-19, ESRC, English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, Understanding Society, fieldwork, longitudinal studies, methodology and innovation

• Posted on 21 July 2020 by Ceri Davies, Director, NatCen Centre for Deliberative Research

  Digital engagement with citizens on the environment

  

  Covid-19 is taking social researchers into new territory. With face-to-face fieldwork paused, researchers have been left to explore how else (if at all) they can continue existing studies. The pandemic also poses a particularly tricky question of how findings from research designed for pre-Covid-19 society should be interpreted in what will be very different future realities.

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  Tags: 25 Year Environmental Plan, Covid-19, citizen engagement, deliberative research, fieldwork, online methods

• Posted on 30 June 2020 by Guy Goodwin, Chief Executive

  Someone’s knocking at the door

  

  Most of the UK’s high-quality random probability social surveys use face-to-face interviewing. The Covid-19 lockdown meant an immediate pause to this work. When can, and should, interviewers return into the field to conduct social surveys and under what conditions? In this blog post, our Chief Executive Guy Goodwin addresses some of the key questions for both survey commissioners and research organisations.

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  Tags: Covid-19, Covid-19 Infection Study, NatCen Opinion Panel, coronavirus, fieldwork, telephone surveys, web surveys

• Posted on 17 June 2020 by Guy Goodwin, Chief Executive

  Testing boundaries during the pandemic

  

  Certainly, there is no question about the importance and relevance of some of our NatCen research right now, whether we’re finding out how older people are coping during the pandemic, helping with the volumes on the Covid-19 infection study or taking part in the partnership evaluating the contact tracing app pilot on the Isle of Wight.

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  Tags: CATI, Computer-assisted telephone interviews, Covid-19, Covid-19 Infection Study, ELSA, English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, coronavirus, innovation

• Posted on 07 April 2020 by Joy Mhonda, Research Director

  Community 2.0

  

  I live in a part of London that ranks pretty high on the index of multiple deprivation, but what we lack in wealth, we make up for in community spirit. I am on first-name terms with many of my neighbours, and to those I have not had the pleasure to meet with formally, I offer an effusive 'hello'. I am not unique in this regard: NatCen’s report on local communities shows that 83% of the British population greet their neighbours at least once a week, with only 2% saying they never offer greetings.

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  Tags: Covid-19, NHS, community, crisis, neighbourhoods, volunteering

• Posted on 03 April 2020 by Molly Mayer, Researcher

  Parents are less rushed today than twenty years ago, but are they finding things any easier?

  

  For any parent reading this while supervising their child doing homework, or trying to make dinner while also doing a load of laundry and discussing the strengths and weaknesses of a particular Pokémon figure, it will come as no surprise that parents are busy. In 2015, 91% of parents with children under sixteen reported feeling rushed.

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  Tags: Covid-19, Modern Family Index, UK Time Use Survey, childcare, parents, women's equality