Teacher Workforce Survey in Scotland (2017): Final Report

Abstract

The Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Stirling designed an online survey of teacher workforce, to obtain a current picture of teachers’ professional working across Scotland. This research project was funded by the NASUWT. We were interested in teachers’ working patterns, workload, morale and their views on continuing professional development (CPD). We also investigated how teachers were experiencing changes to Scotland’s educational policy landscape from 2010 to date, and the impacts that these changes had on their professional lives. We aimed to understand the variation in teachers’ views and experiences across different characteristic groups, among teachers from different school phases, and with varying levels of experience and seniority. The main stage of the data collection was carried out from April to June 2017. A second stage was conducted in August and September 2017. In total, nearly 1,400 teachers from across Scotland responded to the survey. Teachers’ responses have highlighted a number of important issues. This report will present the key findings from the survey data. The report begins with an outline of the survey methodology, including details of sampling methods and design of the survey questionnaire. It highlights some difficulties that we encountered while conducting the survey. In this section, we also provide some summary statistics of survey respondents. Sections 3 to 7 report on findings relating to working pattern and workload, CPD, teachers’ morale, working environment and teachers’ experiences of recent policy changes. We have made comparisons across some characteristics, such as gender, age, disability and school level, serving as examples. Finally, Section 8 provides a brief summary of the key findings and concludes the report.