Next stage: the survey moves on

After months of research, writing, re-writing, testing, editing and more re-drafting, our survey is complete.

A scene from our symposium with academics from across the UK (and beyond), March 2025, Sheffield Hallam University.

Following our symposium with folklorists from across the UK (and beyond), we made plenty of amends to our survey - in fact, it was pretty much re-written. We then had the pleasure of hosting staff and student focus groups, plus another with members of the public, to see if what we were asking made sense, whether it challenged or confirmed expectations, and whether or not there was any content missing. These conversations were incredibly illuminating, and led to many more revisions. Of course, the nature of the survey means we cannot incorporate everything we would like to, especially as we are working within strict parameters (a completion time of around 15-20 minutes ensures we need to be succinct), but we hope the survey will become the start of a dialogue that will lead to the identification of areas we can follow up for future research.

We’ve packed the survey off to our project partners, Ipsos UK, who will be taking a look at it and making recommendations based on their decades of experience of hosting surveys and generating fascinating material. Once Ipsos is happy, they will then conduct the survey interviewing a representative quota sample of adults via i:omnibus, the company’s online omnibus solution. We hope to get the results back at the end of the summer, so stay tuned!