How To Figure Survey Percentages

Survey percentages look at the number of affirmative responses compared to the total number of responses received. To calculate the survey percentage, you need to use basic division. The trick with survey percentages is to keep your data organized so that you can quickly add together the affirmative responses and discard the nonaffirmative responses. Once you have the data organized, you only need to divide affirmative responses by total responses to find your percentages.

Step 1

Define what you want your survey percentage to represent. For example, you may want to find out how many people responded that their favorite color is blue in a survey.

Step 2

Count the number of people you polled in the survey. In the example, assume you polled 1,000 people.

Step 3

Count the number of people who answered in the affirmative to your question. In the example, assume 200 people said blue was their favorite color.

Step 4

Divide the number of people who answered in the affirmative by the total number polled. In the example, 200 divided by 1,000 equals 0.2.

Step 5

Multiply the quotient you calculated in Step 4 by 100 to get a percentage figure. In the example, multiply 0.2 by 100 to get 20 percent. This is the percentage who said they had blue eyes.