Social Statistics ICA: 21005373

This sample survey aims to understand the opinions and attitudes towards Brexit among voting-age UK
citizens. With the exploration of the collected data, we hope to gain clarity on objectives such as whether
voters think, in hindsight, that Brexit was a good or bad decision, how it has affected them economically
and socially, and how they see the impacts of Brexit as a policy while controlling for demographic
differences.

Sampling
To establish the sampling plan, it is crucial to define key aspects of the sample. Firstly, the target
population will be UK citizens that are eligible to vote, however, we will reduce the study population to those
who are currently registered on the UK electoral roll. The sampling frame can be conveniently gathered
from this with the electoral roll containing information about citizens’ (sampling elements) addresses and
ages, serving as a comprehensive representation of the target population. The sampling units consisting of
randomly selected citizens will be identified via the chosen sample method of stratified random sampling.
The survey will be conducted by contacting the sampling units through postal mail. The participants will
have the option to either complete the form online using a QR code provided in the letter, or they can
complete the paper version of the form and send it back through the mail. To minimise non-response bias,
we will follow up with individuals and remind them to complete the survey. We will also provide personal
invitations to increase the response rate. By allowing multiple methods of completing the survey, we can
eliminate differences in response rates between demographic groups.
To assess the differing impacts of Brexit, we will use random stratified sampling to ensure that the sample
size within each characteristic is high enough for comparison across strata. This approach will also improve
how well the sample represents the target population of voters while reducing sampling error.
After using past data to estimate 𝑆 2 with pq taking Brexit Remain or Leave as a binary variable from prior
opinion polls, 𝑆 2 was found to stay relatively constant however 𝑝 is found to vary. Thus, we will use
proportional allocation to allocate between strata.
Assuming a standard budget of £30,000 for nationwide surveys, and a standard cost of £1.70 for printing
and sending letters in bulk in the UK, we can estimate a required sample size of approximately 17,648.
Our strata will be as detailed below using proportional allocation:

Region 18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65-74 75-84 85+

North East 101 106 101 110 118 96 56 21
North West 284 316 299 312 307 243 148 55
Yorkshire 216 231 217 231 226 182 111 42
East Midlands 191 199 193 211 203 165 102 38
West Midlands 232 249 239 252 236 189 123 47
East of England 220 261 265 274 258 211 134 55
London 347 513 451 375 295 185 106 44
South East 335 370 390 409 380 303 195 81
South West 208 221 217 240 247 214 139 57
Wales 117 123 116 129 136 115 71 27
Scotland 178 178 190 202 202 178 102 38
Northern Ireland 81 87 87 87 81 70 35 17

One disadvantage of using this method is the possibility of a high rate of non-response, particularly with
mail and email responses. Additionally, those who do respond may have more extreme views on Brexit
than those who are indifferent. To address this, reminders could be issued to non-respondents, although
this may be costly. Another approach would be to use inverse probability weighting to help correct data with
a high frequency of missing-at-random entries. Another disadvantage is the inability to control for other
demographic information, such as socioeconomic status, which may yield greater differences than age and
region. However, stratifying the data based on this information and contacting individual sampling units
would be very difficult compared to using the electoral roll.

However, there are many advantages, especially when comparing stratified sampling to simple random
sampling, which greatly helps in identifying the differences between strata. The administration of the
sample also is clear and removes sampling bias and human resources are used in tackling only non-
responses rather than performing the sample itself.
Questions

To ensure ease of analysis given the sample size and variety of areas covered, closed-ended questions will
be used instead of open-ended questions. This will ensure that respondents clearly understand the
question and facilitate comparison between individuals regarding their opinions and attitudes towards
Brexit.

Likert scales will be used to gauge these opinions and attitudes, with the scale ranging from "strongly
agree" to "strongly disagree" to simplify and standardise the responses. By using such scales, we can
measure the degree of agreement or disagreement on specific statements about Brexit, such as "Brexit has
had a negative impact on your job opportunities due to less European business." This may help improve
the reliability of the questionnaire, as we may provide questions with opposite polarities to mitigate
response bias. A "do not know" option would also decrease non-response and provide a different answer to
neutral on the scale.

To ensure comprehensiveness, the questions will be split into different sections. Demographic information
such as ethnicity and marital status will also be collected for potential uses with post-stratification of results.
We will first ask how people voted in the election and then ask further questions about how they feel about
Brexit now and what overall impact it has had on their lives. Non-ordered categorical questions will be used
to find what areas of their lives they feel Brexit has affected, such as travel, relationships, and economic
impacts, amongst others. An "other" section and a follow-up question will allow for elaboration.

Moving on to the section about the economic impact, we will begin by asking about the overall impact of
Brexit on their finances. We will then ask about how this impact has changed over time and what their
outlook is on how Brexit will affect them financially in the future.

Regarding social impact, we will focus on topics such as how they feel towards European immigration,
whether limiting it was a good decision, how it has altered the role of the UK in the world and their national
identity, and travel and cultural exchange.

However, the disadvantages of using closed-ended questions with a Likert scale are that the wording of the
questions may unintentionally bias the responses, and respondents may not feel that the provided
response options accurately reflect their views. It is also possible that respondents may not fully understand
the questions or the provided response options, leading to inaccurate or incomplete data. To overcome
this, the full questionnaire should be carefully designed to ensure clarity and validity of measuring
instruments, potentially finding Cronbach's alpha to decide which questions are best to include with a small
sample before proceeding with the whole survey.

Examples

1. To what extent do you agree with the statement: "Brexit has worsened my job opportunities and
made it harder to get a job or get promoted from less European business with Britain"?
o Strongly agree
o Somewhat agree
o Neither agree nor disagree
o Somewhat disagree
o Strongly disagree
o Don't know
2. To what extent do you agree with the statement: "Less competition from European workers after
Brexit has improved my career prospects"?
o Strongly agree
o Somewhat agree
o Neither agree nor disagree
o Somewhat disagree
o Strongly disagree
o Don't know
 3. To what extent do you agree with the statement: "Brexit has improved your sense of national
identity and belonging"?
o Strongly agree
o Somewhat agree
o Neither agree nor disagree
o Somewhat disagree
o Strongly disagree
o Don't know

Analysis

To compare data from different groups, I would use ANOVA in conjunction with an F-test to identify any
statistically significant differences between them. Once these differences have been identified, I would
highlight any trends that emerge. For example, I might note that younger individuals in London are more
likely to feel that Brexit has affected their national identity and sense of belonging, or that they have felt
more impact on the job market compared to older people in the Northeast of England.

As the objective of the survey is to tell the politicians about the differing perceptions of the effects of Brexit:
I would first tell them headline statistics and findings. Then I would use the scores from the scaled
questions and work out scores for how strongly different age groups felt towards either Brexit as a whole,
the social impact or the economic impact then create stacked bar charts about the sentiment towards the
effects of Brexit on key areas such as the social impact. I would also partition the results such that we could
first show the differences that age could make and then show the differences between regions as trying to
differentiate between 96 groups in one diagram would likely prove very difficult.

For example,

The chart on the left uses colours to aid

in understanding sentiment and
removes the "don't know" category to
clearly show the differences in how
individuals feel about the impact of
Brexit. It also allows for comparison
across different age groups. A similar
chart could be used to compare
geographical locations. While a
diverging stacked bar could also be
used, it would remove the size of the
neutral group, which may be of use to
politicians.

To display the average sentiment in different groups and show the uncertainty across groups, I would use a
Likert scale error bar plot and present the 95% confidence interval on the plot. To calculate the mean and
standard deviation, I would assume that the Likert scales measure attitude intervals.

If non-response is an issue for certain groups, I would correct it using stochastic imputation. However, I
would calculate the standard error using the number of observed individuals rather than the total size of the
stratum.

To provide additional value to the politicians we may also utilise linear regression to better understand how
much of an impact age range and geographical location may make on the sentiments about Brexit in
hindsight and finding the 𝑅2 may help to find how much of the variance is captured by such variables.
Whilst this survey scheme is effective in finding the consensus about the impacts of Brexit across the UK,
using more demographic controls would allow us to better understand the varied impacts and differences
between demographic groups such as ethnicities in more depth.