Total Design Method (TDM)

Elements of the Total Design Method

The original TDM consisted of two parts. The first was to identify each aspect of the survey process likely to affect either the quality or quantity of responses and to shape them in ways that would improve response. The second part was aimed at organizing the survey efforts so that the design intentions were carried out in complete detail.

The problem that the TDM was designed to solve was that much of the research literature on mail survey design emphasized the individual influence of single techniques—from sending multiple contacts to placing real stamps on return envelopes—without focusing on combined overall effects aimed at achieving the best possible response from respondents. Combining techniques into an overall approach to data collection, focusing on both elements and their temporal interconnections, raised issues of compatibility and of how the use of some techniques might need to be reshaped to be compatible with other response-inducing techniques.

To make decisions on how to combine multiple techniques, social exchange theory was utilized as a conceptual framework. The behavioral assumption implied by this framework is that people's actions are typically motivated by their expectations that in the long run, the rewards for taking action will outweigh the costs of doing so. The process of sending a questionnaire to sampled individuals, persuading them to complete it in an accurate manner, and return it were viewed as a special case of social exchange.

Social exchange differs in significant ways from economic exchange. Social exchange involves diffuse obligations, whereby one person does something in anticipation of the likelihood that the other person will do something in response that will benefit the respondent or others. In addition, the reciprocal obligation is not something that can be bargained with. With respect to social exchange in survey research, it is left up to the potential respondent to take action based upon what the sender of the questionnaire has already done. Social exchange contrasts in significant ways with economic exchange, for which people involved in a transaction typically agree on a price before the transaction occurs and may bargain on that price prior to deciding whether to participate in it. Social exchange does not generally involve explicit bargaining.