Step 4: Make conclusions from quantitative data
Determine if the results are credible by testing for statistical significance.
Example 1
You have 96 staff, Commissioners/Ombudspersons at your NHRI. As you have received 57 surveys, your
rate of return is 59.4% which will give you a credible result (Fig 21). You can triangulate this finding against
those of the document review and focus groups with a relatively high level of confidence that the result is
statistically significant.
Example 2
You have 240 staff, Commissioners/Ombudspersons at your NHRI. As you have received 57 surveys
your rate of return is 23.7%. This is not an acceptable rate of return (Fig 21). The result is not statistically
significant and it is not possible to be confident of this result.
You can further analyse this data by comparing results against your disaggregated demographic data.
The following table gives an example of comparing the responses of female and male members of
the NHRI.
Excel is useful for making these calculations, from which you can produce graphs that provide a visual
understanding of what your data is saying.
79