How to Conduct Self-Administered and Mail Surveys

Abstract

'The authors discuss self-administered questionnaires, the content and format of the questionnaire, 'user-friendly' questionnaires and response categories, and survey implementation. They offer excellent checklists for deciding whether or not to use a mail questionnaire, for constructing questions and response categories, for minimizing bias, for writing questionnaire specifications, for formatting and finalizing questionnaires, and for motivating respondents and writing cover letters' - Peter Hernon, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Simmons College. How do you decide whether a self-administered questionnaire is appropriate for your research question? This book provides readers with an answer to this question while giving them all the basic tools needed for conducting a self-administered or mail survey. Updated to include data from the 2000 Census, the authors show how to: develop questions and format a user-friendly questionnaire; pretest, pilot test, and revise questionnaires; and, write advance and cover letters that help motivate and increase response rates. They describe how to: track and time follow-ups to non-respondents; estimate personnel requirements; and, determine the costs of a self-administered or mailed survey. They also demonstrate how to: process, edit, and code questionnaires; keep records; and, fully document how the questionnaire was developed and administered; and, show how the data collected is related to the questionnaire. New to this edition is expanded coverage on Web-based questionnaires, and literacy and language issues.