Carvalho, Edzia and Winters, Kristi (2023). The Qualitative Election of Britain: Scottish Independence Referendum Study, 2014. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Service. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-856169

The project used focus group research to involve local communities in understanding the impact of the Scottish Referendum on their Scottish/British identities, the future of Scotland post-referendum, and on the polity in Scotland and the UK. It provided an opportunity for the two campaigns, Better Together and Yes Scotland to publicly reflect on the campaign itself, and the reasons for their success and failure. In bringing these two sources of information together we compared and contrasted these expert opinions with the voters they sought to win over. The dataset consists of five focus group transcripts, three of voters and two of activists, with pseudonoymized participant questionnaire responses, metadata, handouts and transcripts organized by theme (Heading 1) and participant alias (Heading 2). We also include the Participant Information Sheet given to Voters, Participant Information Sheet given to Activists, Consent Form, Focus group pre-group close-ended questionnaire, Leader Evaluations Handout and Focus group question schedule.

Winters, Kristi and Carvalho, Edzia (2022). Qualitative Election Study of Britain Party Leader Evaluations Database, 2010-2019. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Service. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-856002

The Qualitative Election Study of Britain (QESB) Party Leader Evaluation Database 2010 – 2019 contains 4,119 words and phrases that evaluate British political party leaders. The data were collected during pre-election focus groups and interviews conducted with participants from England, Scotland and Wales, during the General Election campaigns of 2010, 2015, 2017, and 2019. For the party leader evaluation pre-election component, participants were provided with head shot pictures of the party leaders (depending on where in Britain they lived) taken from the party’s own website. They were instructed to write down words or phrases they associate with each person, and indicate if that association was positive, negative or neutral. The data structure mirrors data structures used in sentiment analysis. Each tab contains a column listing participant’s’ words and phrases as a string variable; the next two columns list the election year and leader, affective evaluations (relating to, arising from, or influencing feelings or emotions) as a string variable, and the affective evaluation as a numeric scale from negative –1 to positive +1. These data are suitable for sentiment and discourse analysis, or analytic generalization – establishing that a concept exists within a population regardless of the number of people who hold it. In addition, a supplementary dataset is provided of leaders’ evaluation data from a study with residents of Dundee after the Scottish Independence Referendum in 2014 (N = 287).

Carvalho, E., Winters, K. (2019). Qualitative Election Study of Britain, 2015. [data collection]. UK Data Service. SN: 8117, DOI: 10.5255/UKDA-SN-8117-1

The Qualitative Election Study of Britain (QESB) 2015 seeks to capture the complexities of why people vote the way they do. The project involved qualitative research in the form of 23 focus groups during and after the 2015 UK general election to investigate what Britons think about elections, campaigns and politics described in their own words. The focus groups were held in England (Birmingham, Clacton, and Colchester), Wales (Cardiff) and Scotland (Dundee and Glasgow). The project seeks to encourage the creation and use of qualitative research like the QESB within and outside academia. 94 eligible voters were recruited in advance of the election to discuss the campaign, the leadership debates and important campaign issues. They were invited back to the post-election focus groups to discuss the election outcome. The transcriptions of these focus groups, the audio and video recordings, and the documents filled in by the participants constitute the QESB 2015 qualitative dataset.