Displaying the Results from a Survey (Year 10+)

There's not much point in conducting a survey if you aren't going to tell anyone about your results. This article contains suggestions for some good ways to display the results from your survey. Always remember that the choices you make depend on the data you have and the conclusions you want to draw from your data.

Tables

If your survey is very simple, you might be able to use a table to display your data. Tables provide a simple way of showing people your results. Don't forget to give your table a title so that people looking at it will understand what your survey was about.

Statistics

Statistics like the mean, maximum and minimum values, and standard deviation can be used to give you a summary of the results from survey.

For example, if you survey the people in your class to find out how old they are, it might be more meaningful to report a summary like this, rather than a list of exact ages:

Graphs

Graphs provide a useful way to summarise your data. They can make it easy to see the relative sizes of different categories, or they can highlight trends in your data.

Here are some of the graphs that you might use to display your data:

Reporting People's Comments

Sometimes surveys include questions that give people the opportunity to state their opinions of something, or to comment on something that is relevant to the survey. If your survey does this, you can report the more interesting comments made by people. You might like to arrange them in a table.

For example, you might say:
"In response to the question 'Why don't you eat brussels sprouts?', we received the following interesting replies:"

• 'Because they don't mix well with honey.'
• 'Because my dog refuses to eat them.'
• 'Because they look too much like baby cabbages.'

Writing a Report

Finally, and most importantly, you should write a report that talks about your reasons for conducting the survey, what you have found out, any conclusions you have drawn, and what action you are likely to take as a result of your survey. You should definitely include an analysis of your data using one or more of the techniques described in this article. Graphs always make a report look more impressive, so be sure to include one of them.