6.1 Presenting quantitative and qualitative data
Generally, you will not include in your report all of the data you have found during your research. You will need to select from the raw data what is worth presenting; think about how it relates to your analysis and recommendations and how you can tell the story of your research in the best way.
You will also need to think about what format to present your data in to convey an effective message. Usually, this will be a mixture of text and visual representations such as graphs or tables. Quantitative data (such as numbers and statistics) are often represented by charts, which can be easily designed in Word. Qualitative data is usually represented in text but can also be represented in images.
In this final activity you will have the opportunity to think about the most effective way of presenting data.
Activity 10 Presenting your data effectively
You have been researching the use of online court hearings during and after the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns in England and Wales. You have found statistics on the number of hearings conducted online and face-to-face, and some quotes from people who have attended remote hearings. You have been asked to decide on an effective way to present the information in your final report.
| Civil courts | Crown courts | Family courts | Magistrates courts | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 2023 | 2022 | 2023 | 2022 | 2023 | 2022 | 2023 | |
| In person (%) | 45 | 79 | 66 | 80 | 20 | 65 | 83 | 84 |
| Online (%) | 55 | 21 | 34 | 20 | 80 | 35 | 17 | 16 |
a.Using one of the suggestions from Microsoft’s ‘Add a chart to your document in Word [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] ’ guidance, or from Auraria Library’s ‘Data Visualization: Quantitative vs. Qualitative’ page, design a visual representation which would effectively present the information in Table 2 in a report.
b.Using one of the suggestions from Auraria Library’s ‘Data Visualization: Quantitative vs. Qualitative’ page, design something which would effectively present the quotes below in a report. These quotes are from people who attended remote hearings in England and Wales between 2020 and 2023.
What if my technology didn’t work? How are we going to speak? How is it going to run? What were the rules, because you could all talk over each other easily? I tried to get some information on audio hearings but there wasn’t any.
There was no real talk of ground rules because everybody else seemed to know what was going on, so they just started.
I didn’t know what was going on. One guy spoke most so I guessed that was the judge, but it was hard to follow, especially at the start.
I could see my barrister on the screen but there was no way to talk to him, so I just watched. I was a spectator really and that just carried on while I stood watching.
Comment
You could present this information in a number of different ways. The statistical information on the number of in-person and remote hearings could have been presented in a graph, chart or table. The quotes could have been depicted by a word cloud, image, icon, timeline or colour-coded. Was your example clear, easy to understand and visually appealing? If so, you may want to use this method in your final written report to present the data you collect.
If it was not effective, think about the reasons for this: it will help you to decide on another format to present information if needed in your final report.
You have now learnt about all of the different stages of carrying out policy research. We hope you enjoy putting these skills into practice in your project.