Overview of using SPSS for the Work Environment Evaluation Survey

Transcription

1 Overview of using SPSS for the Work Environment Evaluation Survey From Statistical Consulting Group March 08 (University of Iowa) SPSS and surveys March 08 /

2 Sections kôr LLC Design Group Goals of the Project Job Type Frequencies Time Spent in Activities by Job Type IMPORTANCE of activities and whether or not the work environment HELPS the activities 6 Conclusion (University of Iowa) SPSS and surveys March 08 /

3 kôr LLC Design Group We are an expert team of behavioral designers. We use analytical methodology to help plan your building or office space from the inside out rather than outside in, matching the physical realities and strategic needs of the space. Add us to your project from the pre-architectural phase, and see how smart space planning adds real value and return on investment. (University of Iowa) SPSS and surveys March 08 /

4 Goals To investigate previously collected survey data in order to demystify the connection between the collected data and the past written report (from prior analyst), thus making the process more transparent for the client. Some specific areas of interest: - Job types and time spent in tasks/activities. - How well the current work environment supports important activities. To investigate the feasibility of the present members of kôr LLC design group to independently use statistical software (SPSS or R) to analyze survey monkey data. (University of Iowa) SPSS and surveys March 08 /

5 Investigate Job Type Frequencies Job Type Question on job types: (University of Iowa) SPSS and surveys March 08 /

6 Investigate Job Type Frequencies Original table summary in written report from Sue: The tables above were created from modified data. In Table, many people in the Other group were actually Underwriters and the analyst noticed this and modified accordingly. This choice makes a better summary. (not automated) In Table, some job types with similar responsibilities and few members were pooled together. (not automated) (University of Iowa) SPSS and surveys March 08 6 /

7 Investigate Job Type Frequencies Unmodified raw table output from SPSS (automated) The unmodified responses for this question can be easily outputted from SPSS as a table (FREQUENCIES) or bar graph using the following SPSS automated code: (University of Iowa) SPSS and surveys March 08 7 /

8 Investigate Job Type Frequencies Please indicate your Job Type. Check the one that best reflects your primary job function: (in conjunction with your Department noted in Question #) Valid Other (please list) Audit Management Supervisor Support Staff Total Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent (automated) (automated) (University of Iowa) SPSS and surveys March 08 8 /

9 Investigate Job Type Frequencies There are options for different looks in SPSS, but that would likely take some more customizing. (not automated) (University of Iowa) SPSS and surveys March 08 9 /

10 Investigate Job Type Frequencies So, even on a simple response like Job Type, the benefit of having human analyst greatly improved the summary output. (University of Iowa) SPSS and surveys March 08 0 /

11 Investigate Job Types and Time Spent in Activities Time Spent in Activities For time spent in activities by job type, one issue was that people often left a % blank when what they really meant was 0%. This means SPSS saw these as missing values, not zeros, and that can make a very big difference in numerical summaries. - This was verified by checking that the total sum was actually 00%. This was mistake corrected through custom SPSS code after the analyst noticed the issue. (not automated) (University of Iowa) SPSS and surveys March 08 /

12 Investigate Job Types and Time Spent in Activities Time Spent in Activities by Job Type Unmodified raw output from SPSS as table. (automated) Again, with some customizing this can potentially be better summarized. (University of Iowa) SPSS and surveys March 08 /

13 Investigate Job Types and Time Spent in Activities Original graphic in written report from Sue: (not automated) (University of Iowa) SPSS and surveys March 08 /

14 Investigate Job Types and Time Spent in Activities And you can generate a variety of graphical templates within SPSS, but this takes analyst input. (not automated) (University of Iowa) SPSS and surveys March 08 /

15 Investigate Job Types and Time Spent in Activities As Sue appropriately stated: In conclusion, because doing solo work, alone in ones workspace is the activity that all (with the exception of Managers/Supervisors) spend more than 60% of their time doing, it becomes clear that having an appropriately designed workspace that supports solo work is critical. But she also mentions: However, simply spending a lot of time on an activity doesn t necessarily mean that it is an important work activity. And this leads to the analysis on the Importance of activities and whether the work environment Helps or Hinders their performance. (University of Iowa) SPSS and surveys March 08 /

16 IMPORTANCE of Activities and whether the work environment HELPS the activity (University of Iowa) SPSS and surveys March 08 6 /

17 IMPORTANCE of Activities and whether the work environment HELPS the activity Sue summarized the relationships in Table X in the working draft (partially shown below). As one goal, I believe she wanted to point out activities that were given a high importance score but were given a low score in terms of how well the environment helps carry out the activity. (University of Iowa) SPSS and surveys March 08 7 /

18 IMPORTANCE of Activities and whether the work environment HELPS the activity To make this Table X, Sue converted the - scale for these questions into low (-) and high (-) categories and considered the proportion of employees in the low/high groups. She then looked for activities with a high proportion of employees saying the activity was important, but a low proportion of employees saying the work environment helped the activity. But another option is to simply leave the questions as - scores and plot them against each other (see next slide). Activities with lots of respondents stating a high importance and low help score should be further investigated. (University of Iowa) SPSS and surveys March 08 8 /

19 Plot of HELPS vs. IMPORTANCE for activities Meeting with or more in workspace Reviewing large documents Going to other's workspace Activities with lots of points (responses) in the SE region (bottom right) of each plot are a concern and suggest that there is potential that changing the work environment could improve things The proportion in each region is provided in the legend Meeting with one in workspace Using telephone Quiet work (NOTE: The straight line is a regression line added for reference, but not necessarily relevant for this situation). (University of Iowa) SPSS and surveys March 08 9 /

20 Plot of HELPS vs. IMPORTANCE for all 9 activities Impromptu meetings Scheduled group meetings Taking a break Going to other's workspace Reviewing large documents Meeting with or more in workspace (University of Iowa) Meeting with one in workspace Using telephone Quiet work SPSS and surveys March 08 0 /

21 Relationships of HELPS with Outcomes You can also consider correlations with Outcomes (performance, satisfaction, etc.) as Sue did in the other columns of Table X, but there gets to be a lot of correlations to consider, and I would assess how useful those are to you before proceeding with them. (University of Iowa) SPSS and surveys March 08 /

22 Conclusions In the big picture, SPSS is probably not cost-prohibitive ( $000 a year for one license), but to utilize SPSS for your survey summary will take some SPSS/statistical expertise, which means either an investment of time on your behalf, or the hiring of an analyst. As was mentioned in our discussion, using Tableau software for the analysis is probably relevant for you to investigate. If you really want to try and analyze the data on your own, Tableau will give you much nicer graphics than SPSS, and the time investment for learning Tableau may be smaller. SPSS can be used to fit more complex statistical models, and that is not one of your end goals, so using SPSS is somewhat overkill for the task at-hand. Whereas Tableau is potentially used as a way to summarize your data quickly with graphics (but we are not familiar with Tableau, specifically). (University of Iowa) SPSS and surveys March 08 /

23 Extra plot: HELPS vs. IMPORTANCE Just as an example, we ve added one more plot here. This is from R not Tableau, but it takes the same data in the above 9x9 grid and tries to smooth things out. The idea is that it shows you where there are lots of responses (darker) and where there are few responses (lighter) (University of Iowa) level level Going to other's workspace 0.00 level Scheduled group meetings level Impromptu meetings Reviewing large documents level level Meeting with or more 0.00 Meeting with one in workspace level 0.00 Taking a break 0.00 Using telephone level Quiet work SPSS and surveys level March 08 /