A Google Form is a great way to conduct a survey. It even produces nifty graphs of the results. But, it does not give you a breakdown of the data. More specifically, it does not answer Independent/Dependent variable questions, eg "Are Males or Females more likely to..." That's where a Pivot Table comes in handy.
Create a survey, share it to gather responses, then analyse your data using a Pivot Table as a way of asking your data questions about the interaction of Independent vs Dependent variables.
Step 1: Create & Share a Survey
- Use a Google Form to set up a survey.
- Click Share. You can use bit.ly or Rebrandly.com
- TIP: If you want clean, no-hassle data, avoid using multiple selection format questions (checkboxes).
Step 2: View Survey Responses
- You can get a quick summary of the data by clicking on Responses. But it is a one-dimensional analysis. Eg 50 said Yes, 20 said No, but we can't see quickly who said what (eg Male vs Female).
Step 3: Create a Pivot Table
Here is some fake sample data to work with. Make a copy of the file so you can play with the data.
Note:
- There are 3 Independent variables (IV): Gender, Age Group and Location.
- There are 3 Dependent variables (DV): Twitter, Facebook and Computer Test Score
- There are already some pivots (see the tabs at the bottom) that you can explore.
To create your own:
- Insert > Pivot Table > New Sheet > Create
- NB - you must first click on any cell in the data, and there can be no empty columns
Step 4: Arrange the Variables
Basically, you use a Pivot Table to play with variables. Independent Variable (IV) is a relatively fixed characteristic; Dependent Variable (DV) is where you hypothesise you may see an effect.
So, ask questions: eg "What is the effect of Gender on Twitter usage?"
- Independent Variable as Row
- Dependent Variable as Column
- COUNTA for any variable for Values
Your setup could look like this
If you choose a numeric field (eg Computer Test Score), you will use AVERAGE as the summary.
Step 5: Chart
Insert a Chart to visualise your findings.
- Select the data in the Pivot Table (do not include the Total columns, but do include the row and column labels)
- Insert > Chart
- For non-numeric data (eg Yes/No) select 100% Stacked Column as the Chart Type. This is useful as it converts the summary data to a percentage, so you can compare your IVs even if you have different numbers of people in each category.
- For numeric data use a Column Chart