When you create your own survey on Polco, your results will look slightly different from our benchmark surveys like The NCS. After your survey closes, you’ll find three tabs under the survey: Participation, Results, and Advanced Results. These tabs help you explore your survey data, especially using filters and crosstabs (or breakdowns).
Filters vs. Crosstabs
Filters allow you to view results based on specific groups, such as verified residents or people living within your city limits. You can find these options under the "Results" tab.
Filters are useful for:
- Seeing responses only from your city’s residents.
- Viewing results from verified respondents.
- Filtering responses from subscribers.
Crosstabs (Breakdowns), available under the Advanced Results tab, allow you to analyze survey responses by demographic factors like age, gender, or location. For example, if you want to see how different age groups or genders responded to a particular question, crosstabs let you compare results easily.
Crosstabs are helpful when:
- You want to see results by voter precinct.
- You want to compare responses across neighborhoods or areas within your city.
- You want to break down answers by age, gender, or other demographic factors.
Using Crosstabs in Your Survey
To take full advantage of crosstabs, it’s important to use Polco’s pre-set demographic questions. This ensures that demographic data is consistent across all surveys, and respondents won’t have to answer the same demographic questions repeatedly.
Here’s how to access crosstabs for your survey:
- Go to your closed survey.
- Click “View” and scroll down to the Advanced Results section.
- In Advanced Results, you can view survey data broken down by various demographics, such as age, gender, and homeownership.
Additionally, you can toggle between User Reported and Verified responses. This feature lets you see results either from all respondents (User Reported) or only from verified respondents (Verified). This toggle will adjust all breakdowns you’re viewing.
By using filters and crosstabs together, you can gain deeper insights into your survey data and make more informed decisions based on specific resident feedback.
