Health Canada First Nations and Inuit Home and Community Care (FNI HCC) Program - Evaluation Guide

Analyzing the Information

You have developed a plan, chosen your method of collecting the information, and gone out and gathered the information. So what does it all mean? This section is divided into two parts. The first provides suggestions for analyzing survey data while the second provides tips for analyzing feedback from interviews and focus groups.

Tip!
Consider organizing the analysis into a Conclusion- Recommendation link. Determine what you can conclude from the results and link those conclusions to what you would recommend.

Review your project purpose
Regardless of the method used, you will save yourself considerable time and effort by reviewing your original project purpose - the reason you did the evaluation - before you begin your analysis. This will help to focus your thoughts before getting into the data.

Analyzing Surveys

You have conducted the survey and now you need to determine what the results mean.

Coding Questions

As outlined on page 13, there are two main types of questions you will have asked in your survey:

• Closed-ended Questions
• Open-ended Questions

It is worth mentioning these two types again because closed-ended questions are easier to work with because you have a defined number of choices.

While open-ended questions are useful, they do require more work in analyzing. Coding is a technical term used to describe the grouping of similar responses. Unless you are familiar with coding or have someone at your disposal that is, you might want to try to structure your survey to have closed-ended questions only.

Data Entry
In order to analyze the data from surveys, you can compile the information by using a computer program. If you don't have accessible computer capacity on hand, you may want to ask someone who has experience with computers. Several good computer programs (spreadsheets) such as Microsoft Excel and Lotus are available to accomplish this task.

Again, it helps to have someone who is comfortable with numbers and data entry with spreadsheets.

Numbers, numbers, and more numbers!

Not everyone is a number cruncher. Some people don't like it while others do not find it comes easy. Find someone who likes it and has the skill set to conduct the analysis.

Tip!
Organize your analysis by the sections used in your survey or discussion guide. Quite often there is a natural link of topics, themes or categories. This will help make your analysis more workable.

Analyzing Focus Groups and Interviews

This section provides suggestions for sorting through your notes from focus groups or interviews.

Organizing Your Information

Unlike analyzing numeric data, analyzing the information from focus groups or one-on-one interviews is more subjective. That said, there are some ways to make the process easier and more reliable.

• Start with making your own "top of mind" notes following each group or interview. No matter how much you may think "I won't forget", the longer you wait the less you will tend to remember.
  
• If you were fortunate enough to have someone take notes for you, review their notes following the project.
  
• Organize comments into similar categories (e.g. concerns, suggestions, strengths, weaknesses, similar experiences, program inputs, recommendations, outputs, outcome indicators, etc.)

Tip!
Know when to quit. You can often keep looking at the data and crunch more numbers. Once you feel you have the most important information, do yourself a favour and begin writing the summary report.

Know Your Limitations

Remember that information from focus groups is not meant to be calculated. Avoid trying to create percentages or attach numbers.

Typically, your evaluation is based on feedback from a relatively small number of people. Keep in mind that the information should be used to identify trends. This is not to suggest it is not valuable. It is.

Tip!
Get someone who takes good notes to record the feedback during the focus groups or interviews. For a number of reasons, it is not recommended that you take notes if you are the focus group moderator or interviewer.