A total of 3,470 participants (respectively 2,818 participants – see above) are included in the sample, of which 2,638 come from the 12 RAY countries and 832 (24%) from other countries.
They were involved in altogether more than 823 projects33 (see Table 1, Table 2, Table 3, Table 4, Table 5, Table 6). The proportion of participants from the ‘hosting’ countries is considerably higher than of those from the ‘sending’ countries – presumably caused by the fact that all
‘hosting’ participants could answer the questionnaire in an official language of their country of residence, contrary to many ‘sending’ participants. Participants from RAY countries show fairly similar characteristics as those participants from other countries, with slight deviations, e.g. more female participants from RAY countries, or a higher educational attainment of participants from other countries.
A total of 1,215 project leaders are included in the sample, of which 911 come from the 12 RAY countries and 304 (25%) from other countries (see Table 7, Table 8, Table 9, Table 10,
Table 11, Table 12). They were involved in altogether more than 765 projects.34 In this case, the number of project leaders from ‘sending’ and ‘hosting’ countries is almost balanced (except for youth initiative projects, which by a majority are national activities) – probably because of better foreign language skills of project leaders who could answer the questionnaire also in English.
The sample of project participants also included participants in activities organised by the National Agencies within the ‘Training and Cooperation Plan’ (TCP). Project leaders of TCP activities were not invited to take part in the surveys since they are generally employed by the
30 It is planned to continue these surveys until the end of the Youth in Action Programme. Therefore, the consolidated data from these surveys will allow a meaningful analysis with respect to all (sub-) Actions.
31 In the RAY surveys in 2009/2010, 67% of the responding project leaders came from applicant organisations; in the surveys 2010/2011, 53% of the respondents came from applicant organisations: this demonstrates a broader representation of the total population of actors involved in funded projects.
32 As of July 2011, the YiA National Agencies and their research partners from the Flemish community in Belgium, Luxembourg and Turkey joined the RAY network, increasing the number of RAY network countries to 15. The questionnaires are now also available in French and in Turkish – therefore in 14 languages.
33 For 100 TCP participants the project they were involved in could not be identified.
34
National Agencies and very often are involved frequently in these activities, therefore they might become irritated with multiple invitations within each survey.
It needs to be mentioned, that the number of participants and project leaders from Liechtenstein is too small to provide for a meaningful comparison with other countries: the data set used for the transnational analysis 2010/11 which includes, e.g., only 2 project leaders and 6 participants who were residents of Liechtenstein at the time their project took place. A comparison might become possible after collecting the RAY data until the end of the YiA Programme.
As for the sample of projects represented in the responses of project leaders, more than half of the projects are multilateral (involving four or more countries), with the highest proportion among T&N projects (96%) and YE projects (almost 70%) and the lowest percentages obviously among YI projects (85% involving only one country) and EVS projects (70% involving only two countries. As for the regions, the proportions are relatively balanced between ‘before 2004’ and
‘2004+’ EU member states, indicating that ‘2004+’ EU member states are well integrated into the YiA; accession countries as well countries from Eastern Europe and the Caucasus were represented in 18% and respectively 14% of the projects of responding project leaders.
When comparing the activity types represented in the responses of the participants and of the projects leaders, a fairly similar distribution is shown, except for SD projects, where around 36%
of project leaders were involved in National Youth Seminars and 64% in Transnational Youth Seminars, while 84% of the SD participants were involved in National Youth Seminars and 16%
in Transnational Youth Seminars.
As for the other (sub-) Actions, the following main distributions can be observed:
around two thirds of the participants and project leaders of Action 1.1 projects were involved in multilateral projects (involving four or more countries); around 30% of the participants and 20% of the project leaders were involved in bilateral projects, and the remainder in trilateral projects;
76% of the participants and 87% of the project leaders in YI projects were involved in National Youth Initiatives and the others in Transnational Youth Initiatives;
around one third of the participants and around one quarter of the project leaders of EVS projects were involved in Group EVS projects; 58% of the participants and 71% of the project leaders were involved in Individual EVS projects, and the others in projects combining Individual and Group EVS;
56% of the participants and 80% of the project leaders in Action 3.1 Youth Exchanges were involved in multilateral exchanges, all others mostly in bilateral and some in trilateral exchanges;
the majority of participants and project leaders involved in T&N projects (both in Action 3.1 and 4.3) were involved in Training Courses (more than two thirds of the participants in these project types); otherwise study visits in Action 3.1 are relatively prominent (16%
of the participants, 10% of the project leaders), Partnership Building activities and Seminars in Action 4.3 (17%/13% of the participants; 19%/17% of the project leaders.
When comparing the samples of participants and of project leaders, a similar distribution across project types can be observed, but
there are more European Voluntary (EVS) project leaders (19,0%) than EVS participants (14,5%) – because for each individual EVS there are two project leaders – one ‘sending’
and one ‘hosting’;
there are relatively more participants (8,6%) than project leaders (3,2%) in Structured Dialogue projects;
and there are more participants (14,5%) than project leaders (11,2%) in Youth Initiative projects – evidently there are less team members in Youth Initiatives because they are rather self-organised groups, and because the majority were national Youth Initiatives (while e.g. in Youth Exchanges there is mostly one project leader per partner/country).
There is also a similar female – male ratio for the participant sample compared with the reports of project leaders on their projects.
Furthermore, the activity type in Training & Networking/TCP activities correlates strongly between the participant and project leader samples – resulting in equally weighted samples in the two data sets which provide for analysing a potential correlation between the results of the analysis of the two samples, if applicable.
Representativity of the samples
The project participants (PP) sample represents 7.2% of the total population. Considering that the response rate was more than 30% and that at least 25% of projects should be invited this means that, on average, the sample represents approximately 8% of the total population – therefore, the sample is almost as large as intended. While some (small) countries have included much more than 25% of all projects (e.g. Estonia and Finland) in the contact data for invitations to the survey, others have included less, in particular Germany and Hungary (since they only participated in one of the two surveys), but also Austria, Bulgaria and the Netherlands. Overall there is a medium correlation of the sample by funding country and for future studies it is intended to better meet the sampling standards.
The project leaders (PL) sample represents 12.6% of the total population. Since the response rate is around 30%, the contact data of project leaders – in particular e-mail addresses – is possibly not fully entered into YouthLink from where most of the PL contact data was retrieved. PL are particularly underrepresented from Germany and Hungary (since they only participated in one of the two surveys), but also PL from the Netherlands (due to a relatively low response rate);
overrepresented are PL from Estonia (where the NA produces the PL contact data lists from their own files and not from YouthLink) and PL from Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Finland. Overall there is a medium correlation of the sample by funding country.
Both samples are partially representative, whereas the PL sample is more representative than the PP sample, which presumably is partly due to the fact that the contact data was taken from YouthLink.
Specificities with respect to the PL sample are:
Project leaders of EVS and Training & Networking (T&N) projects are underrepresented (probably because in these projects it is more common that the project leaders are involved in several projects within one year, thus they are invited more frequently – sometimes within one survey – and do not complete the questionnaire for each project they are invited to respond to). Project leaders from Youth Exchanges (YE), Youth Initiatives (YI) and Structured Dialogue (SD) are overrepresented – which may point to the fact that they are potentially more motivated to complete the questionnaire. Overall, there is a medium correlation by project types between the PL sample and the total population.
YI and EVS projects in which responding project leaders were involved are underrepresented (EVS projects for the same reason as outlined above); for YI projects it is probably due to sampling by the RAY partners35).
Specificities with respect to the PP sample are:
EVS participants are overrepresented (because 80% to 90% of the participants were invited since their contact data is easily accessible through YouthLink); YI and T&N participants are also slightly overrepresented; Youth Democracy (YD) project participants are strongly underrepresented and Structured Dialogue (SD) project participants are slightly underrepresented (probably due to sampling applied by the RAY partners).
Overall, there is a low correlation by project types between the PP sample and the total population.
Female participants are significantly overrepresented in all project types (66%/34%
instead of 50%/50% males and females respectively): it could be inferred that female participants are perhaps more motivated/interested in taking part in the surveys or feel more responsible in contributing to this study.
Older participants are overrepresented (participants age 18-25 to some degree;
participants age 26-30 to a large degree), potentially suggesting older participants may complete the questionnaire due to higher levels of competence/education.
YI, YD and SD in which responding participants were involved in are underrepresented – probably due to sampling by the RAY partners; EVS projects are overrepresented (see reasons outlined above).
Reliability of responses
The reliability of responses was assessed through a number of questions with respect to the project venue country, the country of residence, the project type/category and the activity type of T&N/TCP activities.
The responses of participants showed a very high correlation with the actual data in this respect.
The responses of project leaders showed a very high correlation (highly significant) with respect to the actual data on the project venue country and the country of residence, a high correlation (very significant) with respect to the actual data on the activity type in T&N projects, and a medium correlation with respect to the actual data on the project type/category. Furthermore most project leaders responded correctly to the question if their organisation was the applicant organisation.
Overall, it can be assumed that the respondents answered the questions consciously, seriously and to the best of their knowledge.