How do you work out how many choices survey respondents were allowed to select?

[bushra1175]

I don't even know where to begin with this so I thought I could get some clues.

Lets say 45% of 333 people responded to a survey and this was the result:

The exact figures are:
Cloud tech 81%
Big data 54%
Renewable energy 45%
Crowdfunding 39%
Robotics 33%
Automation 24%
3D printing 15%
Biotechnology 9%

How can I work out how many options the respondents were allowed to select?

 

[Dr.Peterson]

How can I work out how many options the respondents were allowed to select?

As far as I can tell from what they say, they might be allowed to select any or all! I would expect that a good report would tell us exactly how the survey worked ...

Clearly, of course, everyone didn't select all 8 options. But you can at least calculate the average number of options each person chose; that may be the number they were allowed to pick, or not.

Try adding up the percentages, and you'll see that they didn't all pick only one; you'll also have a good sense of what the instructions might have said.

 

[Steven G]

1) Suppose each respondent was only able to select some number less than all.

2) Now consider this possibility: Suppose that each respondent could select all the categories if they chose to. Isn't it possible that you still get the same result as in 1? Do you see how this can happen? Please respond back.