The DOI matches its Crossref record.
Mail Survey Response Rate: A Meta-Analysis of Selected Techniques for Inducing Response
Abstract
This article reports the results of a meta-analysis of experimental studies which have examined ten different factors felt to influence response rates to mail surveys. The form of meta-analysis used clearly defines the individual impact of each of the factors examined. Results indicate that prenotification and follow-ups increase the response rate, as does the type of outgoing postage used. Furthermore, studies sponsored by a university receive greater returns. Increases in the size of the monetary incentive used appear to have decreasing marginal gains. Finally, some evidence exists to suggest that the color of the questionnaire influences response rate.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cited by
Response rates to mail surveys published in medical journals
Asch, D. A., Jedrziewski, M. K., & Christakis, N. A. (1997) · Journal of Clinical Epidemiology · doi:10.1016/s0895-4356(97)00126-1 · Cited by 2,110
One Hundred Years of Social Psychology Quantitatively Described
Richard, F. D., Bond, C. F., & Stokes-Zoota, J. J. (2003) · Review of General Psychology · doi:10.1037/1089-2680.7.4.331 · Cited by 1,558
E-mail Survey Response Rates: A Review
Sheehan, K. B. (2006) · Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication · doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2001.tb00117.x · Cited by 1,441
The Design and Administration of Mail Surveys
Dillman, D. A. (1991) · Annual Review of Sociology · doi:10.1146/annurev.so.17.080191.001301 · Cited by 1,311
Comparing Response Rates from Web and Mail Surveys: A Meta-Analysis
Shih, T.-H., & Fan, X. (2008) · Field Methods · doi:10.1177/1525822x08317085 · Cited by 1,159
Introduction: Understanding and Dealing With Organizational Survey Nonresponse
Rogelberg, S. G., & Stanton, J. M. (2007) · Organizational Research Methods · doi:10.1177/1094428106294693 · Cited by 1,048
Physician response to surveys A review of the literature
Kellerman, S. (2001) · American Journal of Preventive Medicine · doi:10.1016/s0749-3797(00)00258-0 · Cited by 956
Response Rate and Response Quality of Internet-Based Surveys: An Experimental Study
Deutskens, E., de Ruyter, K., Wetzels, M., & Oosterveld, P. (2004) · Marketing Letters · doi:10.1023/b:mark.0000021968.86465.00 · Cited by 835
Estimating the Effect of Incentives on Mail Survey Response Rates: A Meta-Analysis
Church, A. H. (1993) · Public Opinion Quarterly · doi:10.1086/269355 · Cited by 705
Response rates in international mail surveys: Results of a 22-country study
Harzing, A.-W. (1997) · International Business Review · doi:10.1016/s0969-5931(97)00040-1 · Cited by 363
The Impact of Contact Type on Web Survey Response Rates
Porter, S. R., & Whitcomb, M. E. (2003) · Public Opinion Quarterly · doi:10.1086/378964 · Cited by 287
Neal, T. M. S., & Brodsky, S. L. (2016) · Psychology, Public Policy, and Law · doi:10.1037/law0000077 · Cited by 114
Lottery-Based versus Fixed Incentives to Increase Clinicians' Response to Surveys
Halpern, S. D., Kohn, R., Dornbrand-Lo, A., Metkus, T., Asch, D. A., & Volpp, K. G. (2011) · Health Services Research · doi:10.1111/j.1475-6773.2011.01264.x · Cited by 77
Alderman, A. K., & Salem, B. (2010) · Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery · doi:10.1097/prs.0b013e3181ea44f9 · Cited by 68
Metadata
- Authors
- Fox, R. J., Crask, M. R., & Kim, J.
- Venue
- Public Opinion Quarterly
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 1988
- Volume
- 52
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 467
- ISSN
- 0033-362X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2159987121
- Cited by
- 670
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 26.19
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.