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Community Arts Mystery Shopping - Methodology

Since people who attend the Community Arts activities sign up for a programme of classes (e.g. 10 weeks), we decided that the best way to mystery shop the service was to ask a sample of service users to perform mystery shopping on our behalf. A random sample of service users were invited to take part in the exercise with the objective of the research to measure performance against a range of service areas, including the Community Arts service standards.

The selection of users, drawing up of the questionnaire, statistical analysis of the returned questionnaire and the evaluation was undertaken by the Quality Unit within the Policy & Development Section. This helped make sure that the results presented were independent of the Community Arts Services

The conclusions reached on the actions of staff, in terms of politeness, knowledge and responsiveness can be very subjective and based on the individuals own experience and expectations.

In an attempt to minimise the subjectivity inherent in the process, a questionnaire checklist was designed to ensure objective measures were included in the process.

Statements were structured to verify whether an activity happened or not, for instance "Staff are polite and courteous" or "Toilet areas are clean and tidy".

The questionnaire checklist was broken down into five distinct categories as follows:

  • Outside the building
  • Inside the building
  • Staffing
  • Community Arts Classes
  • Overall experience

The range of classes covered in the consultation responses include:

  • Adult Pottery
  • Ceramics
  • Creative Writing
  • Dance
  • Ladies Night
  • Scrabble Club
  • North Lanarkshire Choir
  • Photography
  • Pottery
  • Stretch & Flex
  • Tai Chi
  • Writers Workshop

The range of facilities covered in the consultation include:

  • Airdrie Arts Centre
  • Airdrie Library
  • Bellshill Library
  • Chapelside Resource Centre
  • Charlotte Toal Centre
  • Community Hall
  • Cumbernauld Library
  • Cumbernauld New Town Hall
  • Motherwell Heritage Centre
  • Link Centre, Cumbernauld
  • Motherwell Library
  • Netherton Community Centre
  • Pather Artworks
  • Wishaw Library

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