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- Title
Nonresponse in Mail Surveys: Access Failure or Respondent Resistance.
- Authors
Sosdian, Carol P.; Sharp, Laure M.
- Abstract
This article focuses on the respondent unwillingness to participate in surveys, which has resulted in the threat to the validity of information collected through survey methods. Survey researchers have assumed that burdensome survey instruments, respondent skepticism about the usefulness of research, and the issue of informed consent, invasion of privacy, and confidentiality have been major factors in the assumed increase in respondent resistance. If respondent resistance is indeed widespread and serious a phenomenon as has been suggested, mails surveys, as well as surveys based on personal interviews, should be affected. The researcher does not know the number of questionnaires that reached the eyes of the intended respondent, and gave him the opportunity to decide whether or not to respond. Thus, without an accurate estimate of access to intended respondents of a survey, it is difficult to estimate the amount of intentional non-response experienced. Because of a relatively low response rate and evidence of poor handling of questionnaires by the postal service, the researchers decided to address the resistance vs. access issue more comprehensively in an intensive telephone survey of non-respondents designed primarily to investigate the problem of non-response bias.
- Subjects
PERSONS; RESPONDENTS; QUESTIONNAIRES; SURVEYS; MAIL surveys; MAIL fraud
- Publication
Public Opinion Quarterly, 1980, Vol 44, Issue 3, p396
- ISSN
0033-362X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1086/268606