Yun GW, Trumbo CW. Comparative response to a survey executed by post, e-mail, & web form. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. 2000 Sep;6(1):np. [Univ of Southern California, US]
Posted 09/01/2000. Conducted an analysis of the characteristics of 3 survey response modes (post, e-mail, and Web site), using data from a survey of the National Association of Science Writers (NASW), in which science writers' professional use of e-mail and the Web is evaluated. The results show a number of potentially important differences in the response characteristics of these 3 groups. Researchers using multi-mode survey techniques should keep in mind that subtle effects might be at play in their analyses. The authors do not, however, observe significant influences of survey mode in their substantive analyses. They conclude, at least in this case, that the differences detected in the response groups indicate that using multi-mode survey techniques improved the representativeness of the sample without biasing other results.