The report and accompanying tables show data for the first survey year, the previous survey year and the current survey year (academic year 2017-18, academic year 2023-24 and academic year 2024-2025). This has allowed for analysis of the change in participation and activity levels over time.
Note that disability variables in all academic years from 2019-20 onwards are different from academic years 2017-18 and 2018-19 because of an improvement to the questions after cognitive testing with young people; therefore, figures are not shown in the data tables for academic year 2017-18 and 2019-2019.
The disability variables since academic year 2019-20 (Year 3) are all for long-term limiting disability and impairments. In academic years 2017-18 (Year 1) and 2018-19 (Year 2) reports, data were shown for all disability, whether or not long-term limiting.
To compare data across the three survey years, significance testing has been applied to the report tables. This indicates whether changes observed across survey years are likely to be ‘true’ changes in the population, rather than just observed by chance.
Academic year 2024-25 (Year 8) is compared to academic years 2017-18 (Year 1) and academic year 2023-24 (Year 7).
Standard errors were generated using the complex samples module in SPSS; these were then applied to t-tests to assess statistical significance.
Only differences which are statistically significant are reported on as differences in the commentary in the published report. When results are reported as being the same for two groups, this means there is no statistically significant difference.
The accompanying tables also include data for the full time series (trend tables). These tables are intended as summary statistics only, and so significance testing has not been applied to them.