How to Aggregate Survey Results

Surveys are used by a variety of different people, including scientists and marketing representatives, to gain overall information about a target group or population. Survey results can be displayed in numerous ways, including pie charts, bar graphs and spreadsheets. Another very common way of demonstrating survey answer results is by showing aggregate results for each question. Aggregate results give a number percentage of how many people gave each answer. Aggregate results are very easy to calculate, and sum up how the majority of the study sample responded for each question.

Things You'll Need

• Calculator

Instructions

1. Total up the number of people who answered a particular question. Usually, this number is the same for all questions in a survey.

2. Add up the total number of people who gave each answer for the question. For example, if the question read: "Do you have any siblings?," the two answer choices would be Yes and No; write down how many "Yes" answers you recorded and how many "No" answers.

3. Divide the number of people who answered "Yes" by the total number of people who answered the question. The resulting number is the aggregate percentage for that answer. If there are only two choices for the particular question, you can subtract that number from 100 to obtain the aggregate for the other answer. For example, if 45 percent answered "Yes" to the example above, then the aggregate for "No" would be 55 percent.

4. Repeat this process for each question. Type the aggregate number next to each corresponding answer to give a visual of the aggregate results.

References

• ICMA: Sample of Aggregate Survey Results