A Note On Statistics

Due to the nature of the way in which some people answered the questionnaire, some assumptions had to be made in interpreting the data that we received back from the parish. Some people ticked boxes that asked for numerical answers and others put numerical answers in boxes that should have been ticked.

Some interpretation had to be done in such cases by the analyst. The numerical values asked for did vary slightly from question to question. In some cases we asked for a rating of importance between 1 and 3; in others, between 1 and 5. Where respondents misinterpreted the instructions and ticked boxes that should have had numerical answers, the answer was assumed to be a “1” in the case of questions asking for an answer between 1 and 3, and a “2” in questions asking for an answer between 1 and 5. Those that gave numerical answers to questions requiring a tick were given a tick if they wrote “1” or “2” in the box. Whilst this “common-sense” approach is not perfect, it shouldn’t produce too much bias in the results

In many cases, people chose to answer only some of the questions on the questionnaire, so it would not be true to say that 471 people answered each question. Where the question was a simple yes/no, it’s obvious how many answered by adding the two figures together. In other cases it has been calculated. Further explanation is held within the text and the number of respondents is stated, where appropriate.

The bulk of this statistical analysis is covered in the Appendices where a complete set of the numerical data can be found, but reference will be made to figures in the main discussion of the results, so it’s worth being aware of the assumptions that had to be made.

Details of the mathematical processes used can also be found in the Appendices.