A Guide to Fact Finding

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SCHOOL SPORT

ORGANISING COMMITTEE

A Guide to Fact Finding

Introduction

As a School Sport Organising Committee (SSOC) you will be a vital part of the team who will be involved in making important decisions and lead the planning and delivery of the Sainsbury’s School Games.

Over the course of the year the Youth Sport Trust will set you tasks to complete that will help your Committee be effective, in order to help you we will provide you with advice and guidance on the specific task.

Each task is also designed to develop skills that will help you in the world of work or in your application for college or university.

To find out more visit www.yourschoolgames.com

and download

‘School Sport Organising Committee — Young Person Guidance.’

The first skill we are looking to develop is FACT FINDING. In order for your committee to make the right decisions for young people in your school you need to understand what they want from the Sainsbury’s

School Games and sport in your school. To do this you will need to use fact finding techniques to help you make these decisions.

This Guide will take you through a simple process that will help you understand what young people in your school want from the Sainsbury’s

School Games and school sport:

1.

2.

3.

What is fact finding? What types of methods and data are there?

Putting your survey together — choosing your questions.

What type of survey to use: paper or online?

4.

5.

6.

Producing your survey.

You have your data. What next?

A five-step process to take you through your first project.

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1.

What is fact finding?

Fact finding is one way of describing the collection of information for a particular purpose. Your purpose may be to find out the date and timings of each Sainsbury's School Games event, which will help your Committee’s planning of the Sainsbury’s School Games.

What is a method?

What is data?

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2.

Putting together your survey

Types of questions

Take a look at some questions you could use to put together your survey:

Open-ended questions

These are questions where a person completing the survey has total freedom to choose the content and length of their answer. For this type of question you will usually see a question and an open text box below.

Closed-ended questions

A closed-ended question is one where you have to choose a particular answer. There are three types of closed-ended questions that you can use in your surveys:

Scaled questions

Scale questions are used to measure or compare someone’s response to a statement or belief.

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3.

Survey type: paper or online?

To help you decide, take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of paper surveys versus online surveys:

Paper surveys Online surveys

Advantages Advantages

Disadvantages Disadvantages

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4.

Producing your survey

Once you have decided, take a look at the how-to guides and templates below to help you on your way.

How-to guides and templates

Paper survey guides

Online survey guides

Five things you need to know about creating your own survey

1. Introduce your survey

2. Choose your font carefully

3. Test the survey

4. Add instructions

5. Think about the sample size of your survey

Or... do the survey in person

Instead of sending out your survey you can also talk people through your survey yourself, either one-to-one or in a group. This means you can explore the questions more fully and hear people express their answers and opinions.

Interviews/focus group

Video

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5.

You have your data — what next?

So, you have completed your survey, whether on paper, online or in person, and have gathered lots of answers and responses. Next you need to analyse this data, and use it to understand what people are saying and which changes need to be made.

Quantitative data analysis

Quantitative data analysis can be done using a calculator, paper and pen or you can enter the data into a spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel. The following are some calculations you can do to help you understand your data.

Qualitative analysis

Collect comments from people's responses to questions (interviews or open text survey questions) which are relevant to your decision making.

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6.

Fact finding — five steps

Whatever your project or undertaking, these five steps should help see you through the process of fact finding:

1. Decide what you want to find out — for example, what do you need to know to make important decisions for the Sainsbury’s School Games?

2. Choose the methods which are most suitable considering the time and resources you have available. Try and use a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods.

3. Decide on a suitable sample size and decide how best to get people to answer your questions.

4. Make a plan and set deadlines for when the fact finding mission should be complete.

5. Go ahead and fact find, analyse the data you collect and then make those decisions.

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