Mail Questionnaire

Advantages

As a data collection methodology, mail questionnaire research offers several advantages. One advantage is low cost relative to costs for similar-quality surveys using interviewer-administered research methods. At one time, the mail survey was clearly the low-cost king, but the emergence of Internet-based surveys offers researchers a second lower-cost alternative.

Another important benefit of the use of mail questionnaires is that, when properly designed and executed, the data collected are generally of high quality. That is, the psychometric performance claimed for scale measures is typically realized. This is not surprising, since a substantial proportion of measurement scales commonly used in basic social research have been developed using self-administered paper questionnaires. Furthermore, the fact that the mail questionnaire is paper based may conjure up the feeling of an examination, resulting in relatively higher levels of respondent effort and attentiveness in filling out the form; indeed, there is evidence that other forms of self-administered interviewing, such as computer-based Web surveys or kiosk surveys, may not yield data of similar integrity.

A third advantage is that, when professionally and diligently implemented among sample cases that are accurately targeted to the sample population, mail questionnaire surveys can be expected to achieve response rates that are similar to or even higher than those that would be achieved by interviewer-administered methods.

Although many factors that can be manipulated by the researcher have been associated with the achievement of mail survey response rates—for example, type of postage used, content and appearance of the cover letter, type and value of the incentive—the [Page 442]characteristics of the mail questionnaire itself appear to be among the most important determinants. Mail questionnaires that have a clean, professional, and uncluttered appearance generally produce higher survey response rates than those lacking these qualities. Mail questionnaires with good face validity, conveying a sense that the survey represents a well-conceived scientific effort featuring questions that are relevant and salient to the purpose of the research, are more likely to gain cooperation than those that lack this quality. In addition, mail questionnaires that include only (or nearly only) precoded questions, either traditional closed-ended questions featuring specified sets of response choices or self-coding open-ended questions, tend to encourage survey participation. Widespread use of self-composed answer open-ended questions, where the respondent must write out an answer, tends to inhibit survey response and often yields incomplete and otherwise lower-quality data, not to mention difficulties of legibility.

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