How to Conduct Self-Administered and Mail Surveys

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; fully document how the questionnaire was developed and administered; and 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.