The survey

The survey involved 825 telephone interviews with teachers and senior school managers. It was confined to state schools in England, but covered the whole country, and included all types of school, with teachers in different disciplines and of different ages and levels of experience. The sample was structured to include sufficient science teachers and senior managers to enable robust statistical comparisons to be made between science staff (275) and others, and between classroom teachers and school leaders (139).

Results from the standard, quantitative interviews were weighted so that they were representative of the profession in England in terms of their roles, the regions where they worked, and whether they taught in primary or secondary schools.

The 275 science specialists comprised secondary science teachers, heads of department and primary science coordinators. However, the final data sample was down-weighted to ensure that the overall findings were representative of the English teaching population.

To gain some further insight into the survey responses, 12 follow-up detailed telephone interviews were conducted to bring the findings to life through personal views and experience.

The research was commissioned by the Wellcome Trust from the education consultancy EdComs (www.edcoms.com) and the polling firm ICM. A fuller technical report is also available