Curling success and its impact on participation

Ipsos Scotland was commissioned by sportscotland to conduct research into curling participation rates and the impact that the success of the women’s Olympic and World Championship curling teams in 2002 (winning Britain’s first gold medal at a winter Olympics since 1984) has had on interest in curling. This was a mixed methods study that captured the views of a variety of audiences including ice rink managers, curling club secretaries, ‘new curlers’ and curling development officers.

Technical details The quantitative portion of the research comprised a postal questionnaire of 295 curling club secretaries, a postal questionnaire of 16 ice rink managers and 47 interviews with curlers who were new to the sport. Quantitative fieldwork was conducted between 25th March and 19th May 2003. The qualitative fieldwork comprised 10 telephone depth interviews with ice rink managers and 14 telephone depth interviews Royal Caledonian Curling Club (RCCC) employees and Curling Development Officers. Qualitative fieldwork was conducted between 28-30th April 2003. View the full report here (PDF)