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INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS <br />The reporting of results can be most easily followed by referring to the questionnaire in <br />Appendix 1. Pooled mean scores for all question items have been inserted in the questionnaire <br />for easy reading. A pooled mean score refers to the mean value for all respondents rating that <br />question. <br />Example Analysis <br />For instance, glancing at the first page of the questionnaire (page 54), one observes that 324 <br />respondents (93.9% of the total number of households returning questionnaires) rated the first <br />item on page 1. This was the item on promoting and enhancing business activity in the City. <br />The individual rating of each respondent ranged from 1 to 9. The 324 individual ratings were <br />summed, then divided by 324 to obtain the mean value of 5.4. This is the pooled mean value <br />for this question item. All scaled question items have similar pooled mean values. The reader <br />might want to take a moment to glance through the questionnaire to become more acquainted <br />with some of these pooled mean values. <br />Proceeding to another example, on page 59 are the results of six question items having to do <br />with preferences toward growth strategies. Item #6 shows the highest pooled mean value (7.1), <br />followed by limiting growth using whatever legal means available (6.8). The lowest mean value <br />was given to annexing land and zoning it for residential development (3.0). These pooled mean <br />scores would seem to indicate an overall preference for a limited growth strategy of almost any <br />kind. However, the analysis should not stop here. <br />Many question items in the questionnaire showed important differences in response patterns <br />when taking into account the particular social -economic background of the respondent. For the <br />six growth strategy items on page 59, the age of the respondent appeared to have a significant <br />impact on the rating of items. Table 6 shows this clearly: <br />10 <br />