Study title

Citizen Deliberation on COVID-19 Restrictions and Recommendations 2021

Dataset ID Number

FSD3799

Persistent identifiers

https://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD3799
https://doi.org/10.60686/t-fsd3799

Data Type

Quantitative

Authors

• Kulha, Katariina (University of Turku)
• Leino, Mikko (University of Turku)
• Setälä, Maija (University of Turku)
• Ylisalo, Juha (University of Turku)

Abstract

The data consists of three different surveys to explore the views of Finns on the acceptability of the government's COVID-19 actions before and after the expert hearing and citizen deliberation. The aim of the survey was to find out how the expert hearing and deliberative citizen discussion affect citizens' perceptions of the acceptability of the government's COVID-19 actions. The citizen deliberation is part of the research project "Preparing for the next waves: towards cooperative and legitimate pandemic governance in Europe" under the PALO project.

At the beginning of the survey, respondents were asked if they would be willing to participate in a two-day citizen deliberation. The next step was to ask respondents about their views on the restrictions on the fight against COVID-19 and the various recommendations and regulations issued by the authorities. Respondents were also asked how closely they had followed the news about the COVID-19 in various media. They were also asked about their confidence in the various sources of information on the COVID-19 situation. Respondents were then asked about their feelings on the COVID-19 situation and their factual knowledge of the COVID-19 situation. At the end of the first questionnaire, the respondents were asked for background information, such as their political party preference.

The participants who went on to the citizen deliberation were randomly divided in advance into two different groups, with group 1 hearing experts in human rights and social sciences on the first day and experts in health and public health on the second day, while group 2 heard experts in the opposite order. This experimental set-up was used to investigate whether the participants' opinions on COVID-19 actions would be influenced by the field of expertise and the order in which the experts were heard. After each day, the participants answered a questionnaire, which asked some of the same questions as the first questionnaire. The questionnaires also asked, for example, how much more the respondents felt they knew about the limitations and recommendations on COVID-19 prevention after these discussions. Respondents were also asked to rate the effectiveness of the small group discussions.

Background variables included the respondent's gender, type of residence, highest level of education, economic activity, household income, household size, number of children and political party preference. For those who participated in the citizen deliberation, the additional background variables are year of birth and NUTS3 region of residence.

Keywords

COVID-19; bacterial and virus diseases; dissemination of information; evaluation; government; health advice; human rights; public health; regulations; social attitudes

Topic Classification

• Social sciences (Fields of Science Classification)
• Public health (CESSDA Topic Classification)
• Government, political systems and organisations (CESSDA Topic Classification)
• Political 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

• Kulha, Katariina (University of Turku)
• Sihvo, Sami (University of Turku)

Funders

• Academy of Finland (335690)

Time Period Covered

2021

Collection Dates

2021-02-01 – 2021-03-14

Nation

Finland

Geographical Coverage

Finland

Analysis/Observation Unit Type

Individual

Universe

People aged 18-80 residing in Finland

Time Method

Cross-section

Sampling Procedure

Probability: Simple random

Participants were recruited from a random sample of 6,000 citizens aged 18-80 years old, who were invited by post to take part in the survey and the citizen deliberation. Of those invited, 261 responded to the questionnaire and 163 indicated their willingness to participate in the citizen deliberation. Of those who finally participated, 74 took part in the citizen deliberation, of which 70 stayed for the whole two-day deliberation. The citizen deliberations were conducted using the Zoom app. Participants in the citizen deliberation were diverse and fairly representative of the population in terms of age, gender and place of residence. The main deviation from representativeness was that the highly educated were strongly over-represented. In addition to the recruitment questionnaire, participants completed a questionnaire after both days of discussion.

Participants completed three survey forms using the Redcap tool. The questionnaires were completed on their own mobile device or computer. A link to the recruitment questionnaire was sent to the randomly selected participants by post. Links to the questionnaires for the discussion days were sent to participants by email.

Collection Mode

Self-administered questionnaire: Web-based (CAWI)

Online focus group

Experiment

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

1.0

Related Datasets

FSD3800 Citizen Deliberation on COVID-19 Restrictions and Recommendations: Control Survey 2021

Completeness of Data and Restrictions

Highly educated people are strongly over-represented in the data. More than 50% of participants had a higher education degree, which is significantly higher than for the population as a whole.

To prevent identification of respondents, the variables concerning the number of persons in the household and the number of children living at home (rs_v20a, rs_v20b ja rs_v20c) have been TOP-coded in FSD. In addition, the variables containing open-ended responses to the response option 'Other, please specify” were removed from the data.

The data do not include a variable related to question (pt2_v36b).

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

Kulha, Katariina (University of Turku) & Leino, Mikko (University of Turku) & Setälä, Maija (University of Turku) & Ylisalo, Juha (University of Turku): Citizen Deliberation on COVID-19 Restrictions and Recommendations 2021 [dataset]. Data version 1.0 (2024-07-19). Finnish Social Science Data Archive [distributor]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.60686/t-fsd3799; URN: https://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD3799

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.

Related Publications

Leino, Mikko; Kulha, Katariina; Setälä, Maija & Ylisalo, Juha (2022): Expert hearings in mini-publics: How does the field of expertise influence deliberation and its outcomes? Policy Sciences, 55, 429-450. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-022-09465-3.

Leino, Mikko; Kulha, Katariina; Setälä, Maija & Ylisalo, Juha (2021): Puntaroiva kansalaiskeskustelu koronatoimien hyväksyttävyydestä. Kansalaiskeskustelun loppuraportti. Turun yliopisto. https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-29-8496-1.