A Youth Survey
Area
Math
Duration
2 sessions
Dimension of the advised group of students
One group of 20-30 people divided in small groups
Specific objectives
- To gather data to analyze
- To write survey questions
- To evaluate and communicate findings
Needed Materials
- Photocopies
- Pen and paper (online, Google Forms or similar platform)
- Graphing software (Excel)
If the training is organized online one communication platform will be necessary.
Software
- One online communication platform, such us: Zoom, Google Meet, Webex,
etc.
- Graphing software
- In person, no software is needed.
Description
When people carry out research, they usually gather a great amount of data that is
easier to understand and draw conclusions from if they are organized and represented
in graphs. Graphs make it easier for people to record and show information about any
kind of work. Graphs are also useful to make predictions about things like the
weather, interest rates, and the future cost of our home electricity usage. Information
in graphs and tables is often found in newspapers and pamphlets, so it is necessary
that the youth know how to interpret this kind of information in order to be global
citizens.
This activity teaches participants to design and conduct a survey and represent the
data in graphs. To appeal to the youth, the activity is designed to be part of a youth
survey into the needs of youngsters in an area. To that end, participants will survey
their peers to identify policy areas where improvements are needed and gather their
opinions. As such, the end result could be present to local or regional politicians and
governments so that participants feel their task was useful for their communities.
Procedure on how to put in practice
1st session
Duration: 60 minutes
No of participants: small groups
Methods used: group discussion, collaborative work
Competences developed: critical thinking, logical thinking, graph design
Step-by-step description:
1. Display or ask questions from a short survey to present the idea to
participants. Ask “What’s your favorite color?”, gather the data and represent
it with a graph.
2. Give participants an example survey and ask them in groups to identify the
different types of questions contained (open-ended, range, etc.) as well as
how to best represent answers in graphs.
3. Tell participants they are going to write survey questions to research how the
youth in their community feel about the facilities and resources available to
them and how they would improve them. They have the freedom to choose
how they design the questionnaire, which shouldn’t be longer than ten
questions.
4. Monitor questionnaire writing and help participants.
5. Ask the groups to mingle to ask the wider group their questions. In the
following session, participants will gather the data and represent it with 10
graphs.
Debriefing question: With which type of graph would you represent each question?
