Study title

Sixth Graders' Views on Play, School and Hobbies 2008

Dataset ID Number

FSD2758

Persistent identifier

urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD2758

Data Type

Quantitative

Authors

• UNICEF Finland

Abstract

The study investigated the views of Finnish sixth graders in primary education on play, school, hobbies and leisure time.

First, the respondents were asked questions relating to play. These covered whether they thought all children have the right to play, whether all children have the right to play according to the law, the school grade on which children stop playing, whether childhood play ends too soon and their own reasons for not playing any more. The second set of questions focused on school and recess time. The respondents were asked whether there were general rules and rules against teasing in their school, whether the school playground was big enough, how many friends they had in school and whether they liked gym class (physical education). Those who answered that they rarely or never liked gym class were asked what the reason was (e.g. the classes are too competitive, the gym teacher does not treat all students equally). The respondents were presented with some statements relating to recess time (e.g. "they tease me during recess") and were asked how often the things described in the statements occurred in their school.

The third set of questions surveyed the respondents' free time. Views were probed on how the respondents spent their free time (what they did most often and second most often), whether there were enough places to play and hang out in their surroundings, whether they had enough friends and how often they saw their friends in their free time.

The final section investigated supervised activities and hobbies. Those who had never taken part in any supervised activity were asked the reasons for this ("my family has no money for hobbies" etc.). Those who had taken part in supervised activities, but no longer did were asked why they had quit (e.g. "my hobby was too expensive", "I was teased because of my hobby"). Those who took part in supervised activities at the moment of survey were asked how often they took part in such activities, whether they had too many, too few or the right number of hobbies and which hobbies were the most important and second most important to them. Finally, those with a supervised hobby were asked to select a statement best describing their most important and second most important hobbies each (e.g. "my hobby is too demanding", "I enjoy my hobby very much").

For background variables, the respondents were asked their gender, whether their parent(s) had an academic degree, whether they suffered from a permanent, visible handicap or injury (and what this illness had an effect on), whether there was something in their appearance that disturbed them and that others noticed, how they saw themselves and what their ethnic background was.

Keywords

bullying; friends; hobbies; leisure time activities; play; primary schools; schoolchildren

Topic Classification

• Social sciences (Fields of Science Classification)
• Compulsory and pre-school education (CESSDA Topic Classification)
• Children (CESSDA Topic Classification)
• Social behaviour and attitudes (CESSDA Topic Classification)

Series

Individual datasets

Distributor

Finnish Social Science Data Archive

Access

The dataset is (B) available for research, teaching and study.

Data Collector

• TNS Gallup Finland

Data Producers

• UNICEF Finland

Time Period Covered

2008

Collection Dates

2008-09 – 2008-10

Nation

Finland

Geographical Coverage

Finland

Analysis/Observation Unit Type

Individual

Universe

Sixth graders in primary education in Finland

Time Method

Cross-section

Sampling Procedure

Mixed probability and non-probability

Stratified sample of schools with quotas based on regions (NUTS3), the aim being a wide socioeconomic and geographical coverage. FSD has no further information on the sampling criteria.

The principals of the participating schools were contacted and asked to pick one class at random to participate in the study. Questionnaires were sent to 80 schools, out of which 68 returned them by the deadline.

Collection Mode

Self-administered questionnaire: Paper

Research Instrument

Structured questionnaire

Data File Language

Downloaded data package may contain different language versions of the same files.

The data files of this dataset are available in the following languages: Finnish.

FSD translates quantitative data into English on request, free of charge. More information on ordering data translation.

Data Version

2.0

Completeness of Data and Restrictions

The respondents' municipality of residence, postal codes, and the names of their schools have been removed from the data.

Weighting

There are no weight variables in the data.

Citation Requirement

The data and its creators shall be cited in all publications and presentations for which the data have been used. The bibliographic citation may be in the form suggested by the archive or in the form required by the publication.

Bibliographical Citation

UNICEF Finland: Sixth Graders' Views on Play, School and Hobbies 2008 [dataset]. Version 2.0 (2019-01-23). Finnish Social Science Data Archive [distributor]. https://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD2758

Deposit Requirement

Notify FSD of all publications where you have used the data by sending the citation information to user-services.fsd@tuni.fi.

Disclaimer

The original data creators and the archive bear no responsibility for any results or interpretations arising from the reuse of the data.

FSD has not been informed of any publications related to the data.