Once the population and the sampling procedure have been determined, decide on how the respondents will be contacted. There are five possible methods, three of which are traditional, and two are related to new technologies. The traditional methods are—face-to-face interviews, telephone interviews, and mail questionnaires; methods involving new computer technology are e-mail and posting on the Internet.
Each of the five methods of contact has particular advantages and disadvantages that you should consider in deciding which method of contact to use in your planned survey. Face-to-face contact normally yields the largest fraction of completed surveys, but is very time consuming. Telephone surveys can stimulate interest, but people can also easily hang up. While mail is a low cost method for large businesses, it would be very expensive for students. E-mail is inexpensive and easy for the respondent to reply, but it may be difficult to obtain e-mail addresses for your sample population. Posting on the Internet is also inexpensive but generally this method is limited to non-random samples. Also, e-mail and the Internet are limited to respondents with access to computers.
No matter which method of contact you use, you can do some things to increase the response rate:
| BACK | STEP 4: CREATING THE QUESTIONS |