"How to Measure Your Communication Programs" by Angela D. Sinickas
copyright 2005 Angela D. Sinickas. All rights reserved. ISBN 0-9661757-1-9.26
Analyzing Your Results
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When you conduct a survey, you will generally be working with either an internal resource or an external consulting firm to input the raw data and provide the first-level analysis that shows what percentage of respondents chose each of the possible answers. This 'number crunching' will provide you with a report full of numbers and, perhaps, bar charts. The computer-generated report will show which numbers are statistically valid. However, because you are your organization's expert on communication, you are the best person to translate the jumble of numbers into meaningful, actionable information. Reading this chapter will not make you an expert on interpreting statistical tables, but it will help you understand how to look at numbers for their underlying stories. You'll learn a few tips to make the numbers you examine more manageable. You'll also be introduced to some of the pitfalls non-statisticians can fall into when interpreting numbers. Specifically, this chapter covers: • Ways of organizing large quantities of numbers, such as lumping some together into fewer numbers, collating related data near each other and rank ordering to show relationships. • The differences in what percentages versus mean scores can tell you. • How to interpret demographic differences, both for statistical validity and a reality check. • When you may want to have your raw data weighted for your overall results. • How to avoid reading more into the numbers than you should.(End of Excerpt).
