Stage 2: Wider Questionnaire Development & Control Groups

Following the qualitative stage 1 research analysis, a questionnaire was developed to further explore the themes identified, as detailed in Figure 5.1 in Chapter 5, being social capital (bonding and bridging) and identity contributing to social networks and the potential social impacts (positive and negative) resulting from engagement in DGS.

The questionnaire had eight sections. Not all sections were to be answered by everyone:

• Sections 1-5 was to be answered by all DGS participants (DGS participation, demographics, personal relationships and being, physical health and well-being and opinions) although some questions were optional.

• Section 6 was to be answered by individuals who regularly attend driven game shoots as a beater/picker-up

• Section 7 was to be answered by paying guns only

• Section 8 was to be answered by syndicate members (including roving syndicates) only

• The final question about organisational membership was to be answered by all participants.

The opinion questions were formed out of the literature review findings in Chapter 2, section 2.1 and Chapter 3, section 3.4 (social capital, identity and health and well-being). The qualitative research analysis in Chapter 5, sections 5.3 and 5.4 resulted in the hypotheses to be tested using these questions as shown in Tables 5.10, 5.14 and 5.15. The location of the results within the study for each hypothesis test is shown in Table 6.1, Chapter 6. The opinions

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questions were split into three sections social networks, identity and heritage (explored in Chapter 2, section 2.2 and Chapter 3, section 3.4) and wider impacts/perceptions (explored in Chapter 3, section 3.4) and used a 5 point Likert scale answer system with responses as follows:

1. Strongly disagree 2. Disagree

3. Neither agree nor disagree

4. Agree

5. Strongly agree

The questions within this section formed a scale to be analysed using statistical methods of analysis for some questions to compare responses between groups of participants within the overall respondent group (Johnson and Creech, 1983; Zumbo and Zimmerman, 1993;

Norman, 2010; Sullivan and Artino, 2013). This method of response was used for all ‘opinion’

style questions within all sections of the questionnaire as it was similar to the format used the most recent earlier study into the personal impact of shooting (British Association for Shooting & Conservation (BASC), 2016) and maintaining a uniform response format made the questionnaire easier for participants to complete. There was not an option for the respondents to reply ‘prefer not to answer’, but they were not required to answer the question to move on to the next section of the questionnaire.

This study was interested particularly in physical and mental health and well-being impacts and therefore included sections to collect data around these topics. The physical health and well-being section asked about exercise levels and health conditions and the mental health and well-being section used a verified scale to measure personal, mental well-being. Personal being has been measured by the UK government as part of its annual health and well-being survey (Office for National Statistics (ONS), 2017a) using the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (SWEMWBS) (NHS Health Scotland; University of Warwick;

University of Edinburgh., 2007). A study (Peasgood et al., 2014) identified six scales to measure well-being to measure well-being, noting that the use of multiple measures made comparisons difficult between studies. The use of the SWEMWBS scale for mental well-being

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measurement allows comparison with the national dataset (UK Data Service, 2017) with any data collected avoiding the comparison issues identified by Peasgood et al., (2014) when using different types of scales for comparison between groups/studies (Peasgood et al., 2014).

The researcher considered the inclusion of questions related to life satisfaction within the wider questionnaire, but decided against this for several reasons. As noted above, the use of a five-point Likert scale was preferred as it matched the format of the most recent survey into the personal value of shooting (British Association for Shooting & Conservation (BASC), 2016).

The Diener et al., (1985) satisfaction with life scale uses a seven-point Likert scale for responses so would not have been suitable (Diener et al., 1985; Griffin, 1985). The need for a national comparator dataset was paramount and the national health and well-being survey uses a ten point Likert scale for its questionnaire responses (Office for National Statistics (ONS), 2020) and therefore its inclusion would have both lengthened and complicated the questionnaire in varying the response scale length. As the researcher wanted to ensure the questionnaire was not too long and high levels of life satisfaction have strongly been associated with positive mental health (Lombardo et al., 2018), it seemed appropriate to solely use the SWEMWBS with its five-point Likert scale responses in the health and well-being section.

In terms of measuring social capital, the UK government uses a very narrow set of statistics, including personal relationships, social support network, civic engagement and trust and cooperative norms (Office for National Statistics (ONS), 2017b). These measures were reviewed and whilst they are too narrow alone to enable a full exploration of the social impacts in relation to DGS, an adapted question from the ‘personal relationships’ section was included in the stage 2 questionnaire under section 5 ‘Opinions: Social Networks’. This was supplemented with demographic data to allow analysis of the different backgrounds of those involved in DGS and additional questions relating to friendships.

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In developing measures for social capital measurement within a framework a number of papers were reviewed and a particularly useful study by Lin (2008) was identified, proposing a theory of social capital as shown in Figure 2.3 on page 35 of Chapter 2. As noted in Chapter 2, Lin (2008) argues that returns can be quantified as outcomes via instrumental or expressive actions. Instrumental actions relate to gaining new resources whereas expressive actions relate to consolidating and defending against the loss of existing resources, recognising that social, economic and political returns can be identified through instrumental and expressive

‘returns’ (Lin, 2008). Instrumental returns are those which are focussed on a specific outcome whereas expressive returns are often more subjective and do not result in a direct financial gain for the individual meaning that the quantification of the impact of these actions must therefore be measured in possible savings made in the taxpayer not bearing the costs of rectifying poor physical health caused by lack of physical activity or poor mental health due to loneliness for example (The Scottish Government, 2003; Centre for Mental Health, 2010;

Naylor et al., 2012; Public Health England (PHE), 2016; Mcdaid, Bauer and Park, 2017). The social impacts of expressive actions are of benefit to wider society whereas the social impact of instrumental actions are for the benefit of the individual (Lin, 2008) In addition, a 2013 study looking to develop an instrument to measure the social impact of sport, proposed a

"Social Impact of Sport Scale" including the dimensions of social capital, collective identities, health literacy, well-being and human capital (Lee, Cornwell and Babiak, 2013). These articles, combined with the qualitative data analysis results, were key in the development of the questionnaire.

For the purposes of this study, due to the controversial topic and the nature and longevity of engagement of many participant of the activity it would be difficult to allocate an unbiased and suitable control group to enable a comparative data model study to be completed.

Therefore, an administrative data model utilising historical trends in the public data related to the outcomes suggested was appropriate. However, the study also sought to dig deeper into the types of social capital within DGS and any variation between shoot types, sizes and participants, so additional questions were included to measure this area.

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To summarise, social capital measures used by government to collect national statistical data were not broad enough alone for the purposes of this study. The SWEMWBS scale questions that are included in the UK government annual health and well-being survey, along with the question relating to loneliness, were included in the wider questionnaire at stage 2 to allow comparison with a national dataset. As a verified scale used in wide scale, national research, including the UK government Understanding Society surveys (UK Data Service, 2017), the SWEMWBS is a good scale to use in this study. The scale contains 7 questions, rather than the 14 of the standard Warwick-Edinburgh mental well-being scale which means respondents were more likely to complete the question in full. The full dataset for the 2015-16 Understanding Society Wave 7 survey that is used to compile the annual UK government health and well-being survey can be accessed in full to enable rigorous, statistical comparison of any results gathered from DGS participants with this national dataset.

123 4.7 Mapping Stakeholders & Sampling