Mail Surveys : Improving the Quality

Students and researchers who want to improve the quality of their mail-survey data collection will find this book invaluable. The author considers such issues as: reducing sampling bias; questioning response errors; and obtaining good response rates from mail surveys. The book also offers useful insights and tips on: problems to avoid in mail surveys; what type of rating scales to use; open-ended versus closed-ended questions; screening questions and skip instructions; question and response order effects; sampling strategies; and ways to reduce nonresponse errors - for example, by prenotification or incentives.

How do you reduce sampling bias and question response errors and obtain good response rates from a mail survey? Aimed at improving the quality of mail survey data collection, Mail Surveys answers these questions and more while also offering insights and tips into conducting mail surveys. Areas such as problems to avoid when using mail surveys, what types of rating scales to use, whether to select open-ended versus close-ended questions, screening questions and skipping instructions, questions and response order effects, sampling strategies, and ways to reduce nonresponse errors from prenotification to incentives are explored throughout the text. Through the use of clear exposition and interesting examples, Thomas W. Mangione carefully delineates those situations that are most appropriate for a mail survey.

Students and researchers who want to improve the writing of mail survey questions as well as mail survey design will find this volume essential.