Planning and Conducting

Surveys
MM16 - Engineering Data Analysis
Engr. Jeremaih S. Fainsan
Designing, Conducting, and Analyzing
Surveys

 A survey is a way to ask a lot of people a few well-constructed questions. The

survey is a series of unbiased questions that the subject must answer. Some
advantages of surveys are that they are efficient ways of collecting
information from a large number of people, they are relatively easy to
administer, a wide variety of information can be collected and they can be
focused (researchers can stick to just the questions that interest them.) Some
disadvantages of surveys arise from the fact that they depend on the
subjects’ motivation, honesty, memory and ability to respond. Moreover,
answer choices to survey questions could lead to vague data. For example,
the choice “moderately agree” may mean different things to different people
or to whoever ends up interpreting the data.
 Pros:
 It’s easy to do and quick to create
 It has a wide reach
 It saves you money on research
costs
 You can do it via mail, email,
online, telephone, and verbal
methods
 It can quickly show you trends in
the market
 It gathers large and significant
data
 Cons:
 Survey fatigue could lead to
response bias
 Making the wrong questions can
lead to inaccurate data
 Respondents may skip answers or
quit in the middle of a survey
 Not the best method to use to
gather info on a controversial topic
 The answers you provide must
reflect the possible answers of the
respondents
 Surveyors can be biased as well
Conducting a Survey

 There are various methods for administering a survey. It can be done as a

face-to face interview or a phone interview where the researcher is
questioning the subject. A different option is to have a self-administered
survey where the subject can complete a survey on paper and mail it back, or
complete the survey online. There are advantages and disadvantages to each
of these methods.
Conducting a Survey
Face to Face Interview / Phone Interview

 The advantages of face-to-face interviews include fewer misunderstood

questions, fewer incomplete responses, higher response rates, and greater
control over the environment in which the survey is administered; also, the
researcher can collect additional information if any of the respondents’
answers need clarifying. The disadvantages of face-to-face interviews are
that they can be expensive and time-consuming and may require a large staff
of trained interviewers. In addition, the response can be biased by the
appearance or attitude of the interviewer.
Conducting a Survey
Self-Admistered Surveys
 The advantages of self-administered surveys are that they are less expensive
than interviews, do not require a large staff of experienced interviewers and
can be administered in large numbers. In addition, anonymity and privacy
encourage more candid and honest responses, and there is less pressure on
respondents. The disadvantages of self-administered surveys are that
responders are more likely to stop participating mid-way through the survey
and respondents cannot ask them to clarify their answers. In addition, there
are lower response rates than in personal interviews, and often the
respondents who bother to return surveys represent extremes of the
population – those people who care about the issue strongly, whichever way
their opinion leans.
Designing a Survey

Surveys can take different forms. They can be used to ask only one question or
they can ask a series of questions. We can use surveys to test out people’s opinions or
to test a hypothesis.
When designing a survey, the following steps are useful:
1. Determine the goal of your survey: What question do you want to answer?
2. Identify the sample population: Whom will you interview?
3. Choose an interviewing method: face-to-face interview, phone interview, self-
administered paper survey, or internet survey.
4. Decide what questions you will ask in what order, and how to phrase them. (This is
important if there is more than one piece of information you are looking for.)
5. Conduct the interview and collect the information.
6. Analyze the results by making graphs and drawing conclusions.
Example

 Jeremaih wants to construct a survey that shows which sports students at her
school like to play the most.

 Goal : “Which sports do students at Jeremiah's school like to play the most?”
 Population : random sample of the student population
 Method : Face to Face Survey
Example
Questions : Which Sport Do you like to play the most

Sport Tally • Plenty of space is left for the tally

baseball marks.
basketball • Only one question is being asked.
football • Many possibilities are included, but
soccer space is left at the bottom in case
students give answers that Martha
volleyball didn’t think of.
swimming • The answer from each interviewee
can be quickly collected and then
the data collector can move on to
the next person.
Display, Analyze, and Interpret Statistical
Survey Data
Making a Statistical Diagram

 Bar Chart = Visual Comparison of Person Count vs. Sports

y = Person Count
x = Sports
 Line = Visual Trend/ Growth of Person Count vs. Sport
y = Person Count
x = Sports
 Pie Chart = Percentile of Person Count on a Sample Group
360 Degrees = 100 Percent
x Degrees = x Percent
Statistical Diagram

Table 1.1 Pie Chart of Students like to play the most

Display, Analyze, and Interpret
Statistical Survey Data
 how many hours per week the average high school student at his school
works.
 Raoul found that that
 30% of the students at his school are in 9th grade
 26% of the students are in the 10th grade
 24% of the students are in 11th grade
 20% of the students are in the 12th grade.
 He surveyed a total of 60 students using these proportions as a guide for the
number of students he interviewed from each grade. Raoul recorded the
following data:
Advance Statistical Data Interpretation

 stem-and-leaf plot
 frequency table
 histogram of the data
Stem-and-Leaf Plot

 A stem-and-leaf plot is also called a stemplot, but the latter term often
refers to another chart type. A simple stem plot may refer to plotting a
matrix of y values onto a common x axis, and identifying the common x value
with a vertical line, and the individual y values with symbols on the line.
Frequency

 Frequency refers to the number of times an event or a value occurs. A

frequency table is a table that lists items and shows the number of times the
items occur. We represent the frequency by the English alphabet ‘f’.
Histogram

 A histogram is a graphical representation that organizes a group of data points

into user-specified ranges. Similar in appearance to a bar graph, the
histogram condenses a data series into an easily interpreted visual by taking
many data points and grouping them into logical ranges or bins.
Five-Number Summary

 Step 1:
Put your numbers in ascending order (from smallest to largest). For this
particular data set, the order is:
Example: 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 15, 18, 19, 27.
 Step 2:
Find the minimum and maximum for your data set. Now that your numbers are in
order, this should be easy to spot.
In the example in step 1, the minimum (the smallest number) is 1 and the
maximum (the largest number) is 27.
 Step 3:
Find the median. The median is the middle number.
 Step 4:
Place parentheses around the numbers above and below the median.
(1, 2, 5, 6, 7), 9, (12, 15, 18, 19, 27).
 Step 5:
Find Q1 and Q3. Q1 can be thought of as a median in the lower half of the data,
and Q3 can be thought of as a median for the upper half of data.
(1, 2, 5, 6, 7), 9, ( 12, 15,18,19,27).
 Step 6:
Write down your summary found in the above steps.
minimum = 1, Q1 = 5, median = 9, Q3 = 18, and maximum = 27.
 Step 1 :

 Step 2 : Min : 0
Max : 22
 Step 3 Median : 6.5
[( n+1)/2 ] = 30.5th Value or Average of 30th and 31th
 Step 4 1st Quartile = 0
1st Quarter of list = in-between the 15th and 16th
 Step 5 3rd Quartile = 12
3rd Quarter of the list = in-between the 45th and 46th
END