How to compare your results to benchmarks in Community Views

This guide shows you how to apply a benchmark as a filter and read the arrows that mark statistically significant differences, so you can tell whether a result is high or low compared to a benchmark, rather than just high or low on its own.

Note: Benchmarks are available for all standard Community Views survey questions. For any customised questions asked in your organisation’s Community Views survey, no benchmark data is available.

Before you set any filter, your results already appear next to a fixed list of comparators in two places – within the topic tiles on the Headlines and Navigation page, and in the headline dial chart at the top of some topic tiles. On the headline chart, an arrow may sit against a comparator's value and marks that comparator as significantly different from your organisation’s result.

The steps below use the drop-down menus, where you choose the benchmark yourself and the arrows sit against your organisation's own values.

Steps

1. Choose a topic tile: From your organisation’s Community Views Headlines and Navigation page, select a topic tile, or open the hamburger menu at the top left and choose a survey topic from the list.
2. Find the benchmark drop-down menu: Scroll down the topic page to the first chart you see on the topic tile. Directly above it sits a filter row with three drop-downs: 'Benchmark', 'Local Area' and 'Demography'.

1. Choose a benchmark: Open the 'Benchmark' drop-down, which reads 'No benchmark' by default, and select a comparator. The list holds comparable benchmarks to the overall survey results, such as the national, state, metropolitan and regional comparators (if applicable). If there is previous survey wave data available, it will also show here as an option.
2. Read the paired results: The chart updates to show the selected benchmark results against the overall survey results. A legend names your organisation and the benchmark, and each attribute row now shows two bars – your organisation's value (in magenta) above the benchmark's (navy) value. Where the topic has an index gauge, a second gauge appears beside it showing the benchmark's index.

1. Read the arrows: Within charted results, wherever a benchmark comparison is statistically different from your organisation’s results, an up (green) or down (red) arrow will appear beside the comparison. A green up arrow means your result is significantly higher than the benchmark and a red down arrow means it is significantly lower. No arrow means the difference is not statistically significant – a visible gap between the two bars is not enough on its own, because only the arrow signals a difference that is likely to be real rather than due to chance.
2. Clear the filter when you’re done: Click the refresh button to the right of the 'Demography' drop-down to return the Benchmark drop-down to its default. You can then select a different benchmark to compare results.

What to Expect

With a benchmark applied, the topic tile’s chart shows your overall survey results and the benchmark's result side by side so you can judge whether a result that looks high or low is actually high or low once it has context.

The arrows mark the results where the difference is statistically significant, so you can focus attention on the gaps that are likely to be real rather than the product of chance – a sounder basis for deciding where your organisation sits ahead of, or behind, the places it is compared with.

Troubleshooting

If the 'Benchmark' drop-down holds only the option 'No benchmarks available', no comparator data exists for that question. This is particularly true for any customised questions asked by your organisation, though other questions on the same topic may still offer a comparator.

Benchmark availability is dependent on whether the survey question was asked in the ‘Living in Australia’ study, Informed Decisions’ annual national survey of approximately 5,000 Australians. This is because Community Views benchmark results are sourced from this study.

A benchmark drop-down I had set has reset itself. The 'Benchmark', 'Local Area' and 'Demography' drop-down filters are mutually exclusive. Applying one clears the other two, so only one comparison can be viewed at a time.