Preparing for your questionnaire results

You should try to develop your questionnaire and the spreadsheet, which you will use to analyse the data, together. That way, you can be sure the questionnaire has the right sort of questions.

Spreadsheets are best at analysing data that is:

• Numerical This allows you to find things like meanmean: = average, highest [highest: the highest value ], lowest [lowest: the lowest value ] and range [range: range is the difference between the highest and lowest values in a set of data. ]. Remember the data handling you have done in mathematics – things like 'range'. You will get good marks if you apply the skills you learned in maths to the work you do in writing the questionnaire report. To revise data handling, take a look at GCSE Bitesize Maths.
• Chosen from a short list For example, the question 'Do you agree that children watch too much television?' could have the possible answers 'yes', 'no' and 'not sure'. Questions like this will let you use countif functions to produce useful information.

Numerical data can be entered onto a spreadsheet for analysis

People's opinions

If you want to ask people's opinions and also analyse results in a spreadsheet, it's best to give rate answers. For example:

'My life is dependent on my mobile phone'.

Rate the statement from 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree).

It is best to avoid questions that give a range as the answer, as these are hard to analyse. For example, it is better to ask “How much pocket money do you get?”, and get a single value than to give the respondent a range of values such as £1 to £2, £2 to £3, £3 to £5, more than £5.

Testing your survey

Test your survey and spreadsheet on a couple of people first, before you try doing the whole thing. That way you can make sure that both parts work well, and that you do not waste any time. It is a good idea to get a maths teacher to check over your survey to see if they have any suggestions on how it can be improved.