What is being done with the information we have collected so far?
What is being done with the information and what has been found?
Information gathered from the study so far is already being used to help improve services to young people. This section describes some of the things that have been done with the information and some of the findings so far.
We would like to remind you that all your answers are treated as strictly confidential by the Next Steps research team. This means, for example, that no-one at your college, university or workplace, no-one who lives with you and no other Government Department will ever be able to identify you through what you tell Next Steps. When the results of the study are written up in published reports, it will be impossible to identify you or your family.
Your personal details (such as your name and address) are kept separately from the information you give us and in secure conditions (including encryption) which ensure they cannot be accessed by anyone outside the research team. When we need to transfer data between DCSF and the research team we use an extremely secure on-line method not copying data to media such as disks.
Your personal details will never be passed on to outside organisations, apart from research organisations doing more work for the DCSF or DIUS on the Next Steps study who will be legally obliged to keep them confidential.
The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) who manage Next Steps are working hard using the data you have supplied us with so far. Their first National Statistical Bulletin was produced in the summer and to read this please follow the link at the bottom of the page. They are working on a project which is looking at your attitudes and aspirations for what you wanted to do when you left school and seeing what you actually ended up doing as well as looking at the influences your parents may have had on you. There’s a project underway to look at bullying and which sorts of people are more likely to report being bullied and a project to look at those who were in some form of paid job whilst still at school. When these projects are ready, their reports will be published via the DCSF website (www.dcsf.gov.uk) and DCSF will use them to help their policies in these areas.
But it’s not just DCSF who are using the data within Government; other Departments are using it too. The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) have recently used it to look at those who wanted to go into Higher Education and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) are using the data to look at the effects of living in rural areas on educational choices, experiences and outcomes.
Addition of examination results
If you have ever been to a state school, information about your examination results will be added to your answers from something called the National Pupil Database (NPD). The NPD is made up mainly of information the DCSF collect from state schools every year. We do this so we don’t have to ask you so many questions about exams you have done in the past, which helps to make the interview shorter for you.
If you were at an independent (‘private’) school (or were attending one when you took your GCSEs), and have never attended a maintained secondary school, then DCSF will link your answers to a database which contains only examination results such as GCSEs and A-Levels. Again, this is so we don’t have to ask you about your results.
To learn more about some of the findings from the study please click the headings below
Here you can find a selection of findings from the study so far. We will update this section in future to reflect the findings from the study and the ways in which we are using the information you gave us.
Findings from the 4th wave of the study (2007)
What you ended up doing after Year 11 (Click to show/hide)
Findings from the 3rd wave of the study (2006)
Favourite subjects for those hoping to go to university (Click to show/hide)
Your Health (Click to show/hide)
Caring responsibilities (Click to show/hide)
Findings from the 1st wave of the study (2004)
Using Computers (Click to show/hide)
Relationships with parents (Click to show/hide)
Ways in which young people spend their free time (Click to show/hide)
What you think about other things (Click to show/hide)
In June 2008, the Department for Children, Schools and Families published its first National Statistical Bulletin using some data from the Next Steps study between 2004 and 2007. It focused on the five strands of the DCSF’s Every Child Matters Agenda: ‘Be Healthy; Stay Safe; Enjoy and Achieve; Make a Positive Contribution, and; Achieve Economic Well-being. Some of the findings include:
-Many more young people say that they want to stay on in education after their GCSEs than actually end up doing so, and the gap is biggest for those young people in less well-off backgrounds;
-Victims of bullying tend to do less well in their GCSEs and whilst there are no obvious risk factors as to why some people are bullied, those with Special Educational Needs or a disability are more likely to report being bullied.
To read this Statistical Bulletin, please follow this link:http://www.dfes.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SBU/b000795/index.shtml.
