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Ask questions. Get answers. Then figure out what those answers really mean. We’ll teach you how to organize the answers to your questions in graphs and how to read them in order to find the most interesting results. Plus, we’ll let you in on statistics lingo so you can talk about your results like a pro. Don’t worry, it’s not hard!
A survey is a form with a bunch of questions all over it. There are many different kinds of questions. You write a survey when you want to ask a bunch of people the same questions.
Usually surveys are on a specific topic. All the questions relate to that topic. Then you ask a bunch of different people to answer the questions. After you get all the responses, you organize them and look for interesting patterns.
For example, you might be thinking a lot about elephants lately because elephants are your new favorite animal. You decide to ask people some questions about elephants (note: all the graphs on this page are using made-up information!).
You ask, "Have you ever ridden an elephant?" You get your results back, and here are the results:
A bunch of people said yes. A bunch of people said no. You have a burning desire to know more. Luckily, you also asked everyone, "Have you ever been to a circus?"
A bunch of people here said yes. A bunch of people also said no. With surveys, you can compare the answers to one question with the answers from another question. You want to know if there is a difference between the people who have been to a circus and the people who have not.
Now you see that people who have been to a circus are more likely to have ridden on an elephant than people who have not been to a circus. When you see your mom today you can ask, "Mom, let's go to the circus!" She's a lot more likely to say yes to that than, "Mom, let's go ride an elephant!" Little does she know, riding elephants is exactly what you plan to do at the circus.
They give us information that help us learn more about ourselves and others. We can use that information to make better decisions and ask better questions. They can also just be fun!
Now that you know all about surveys, it's time for the next step:
