Year 2 – Report 2021

How are we collecting data?

Participants complete an online annual survey which is automatically re-sent to them every year. It can be viewed in multiple languages and formats (Written English and Welsh, BSL, Sign Supported Spoken English, designed to maximise acoustic access, and the same in Sign Supported Spoken Welsh).

Participants can even switch languages/formats on a question-by-question basis to support understanding. If you want to find out more about how we did this, you can access a longer free article (see footnote). Participants can stop and start the survey at any time or do the whole thing at once.

The survey collects data on participants’ lifestyle, education, current circumstances, identity and support. In addition, there are three standard assessments: a 5-question health assessment (EQ-5D-5L), a 7-question well-being assessment (The Short Warwick and Edinburgh Well-being Scale – SWEMWBS) and a 21-item self-determination questionnaire (the Self Determination Inventory: Student Report – SDI:SR).

These formal assessments were chosen because they have been previously shown to work in signed languages and be suitable for deaf people. Using them will mean we can compare our findings with general population data.

We are also interviewing participants, if they volunteer. Of the 155 in the cohort, 51 indicated they were prepared to be interviewed and we were able to carry out 47 interviews within the time allocated. Half of these interviews were done by research staff and half by our group of deaf young co-inquirers. These are young deaf people who are slightly older than the READY cohort who have been trained to carry out peer interviews as part of the project.

We will be reporting on these interviews next year but we can say at this point that many young people who took part very much appreciated being interviewed by another person with similar life experience. The co-inquirers, as well as enhancing our project, also feel they have benefited too. You can find out more about their experiences working on the project via the links in the footnote

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