This article breaks down how survey scores are figured out and highlights which score ranges are considered positive. If you've ever wondered how those numbers reflect people's opinions, this guide simplifies the process and helps you grasp what's considered a positive response in surveys.
What does the colour of the score indicate?
To help streamline the reviewing process for executives we have developed a colour coding system for the survey question and section scores. The colour coding system allows you to get a quick overview of the areas highlighted to need the most development or to be the most successful.
- Dark Green : For scores 85 and above.
- Light Green : For scores between 75 and 84.
- Amber : For scores between 50 and 74.
- Light Red : For scores between 25 and 49.
- Deep Red : For scores below 25.
In the example below, an Overall Survey Score of 72 is displayed in green .
What is a Scale question?
First of all, this is what a scale question looks like to the person filling in the survey:
And here is how the results will look when some responses have been received:
Note the amber score of 60 summarises how people have mixed feelings about "looking forward to going to work."
Scale Score Calculation
In the example above there's been 10 responses spread across options 0 to 5. These responses are combined by weighting each value by the number of responses given. To get the combined score the product of each score and the number of responses is found and added together as shown below.
What is a Likert question?
Likert scoring is a widely used method in surveys as it helps to standardise results and quantify data. The Likert Scale is beneficial for its simplicity and ease of interpretation, allowing participants to choose from a range of responses, typically from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree." Scores are calculated by assigning numerical values to each response option and summing up the scores for analysis, providing a quantitative measure of the participants' sentiment.
This is what a scale question looks like to the person filling in the survey:
And here is how the results will look when some responses have been received:
The results view displays the distribution of the respondents answers for each option.
Likert Scale Score Calculation
In the example above there's been 10 responses spread across options Strongly disagree to Strongly agree. These responses are combined by weighting each value by the number of responses given. The options Strongly disagree to Strongly agree are converted into values 0 to 4 respectively. To get the combined score the product of each score and the number of responses is found and added together as shown below.
My team had goals last quarter : (0 x 6 responses) + (1 x 3 responses) + (2 x 1 responses) + (3 x 1 responses) + (4 x 1 responses) = 12
To get the final score, we get the fraction of the combined score divided by the maximum score possible (12 x 4 = 48) and multiply by 100 as shown below.
(12 / 48) x 100 = 25
The Likert Scale Score combines all three sub-questions, therefore the same calculation process is done for the other questions as shown below.
My team had goals last quarter : (0 x 6 responses) + (1 x 3 responses) + (2 x 1 responses) + (3 x 1 responses) + (4 x 1 responses) = 12
I knew what those goals were : (0 x 6 responses) + (1 x 2 responses) + (2 x 2 responses) + (3 x 1 responses) + (4 x 1 responses) = 13
I contributed to those goals : (0 x 6 responses) + (1 x 3 responses) + (2 x 1 responses) + (3 x 0 responses) + (4 x 2 responses) = 13
My team had goals last quarter :(12 / 48) x 100 = 25
I knew what those goals were : (13 / 48) x 100 = 27
I contributed to those goals : (13 / 48) x 100 = 27
The Likert Scale Score is 26 which is the average of all of the sub-questions scores.
How is the Overall Survey Score calculated?
The Overall Survey Score is calculated by averaging the score across all scorable questions, which have been weighted by the responses for each value inside the question.
The Overall Survey Score is NOT the average of the section scores.
For example:
The Overall Survey Score for the survey displayed here is not the average of the section scores as shown below: