Mail and Internet Surveys: The Tailored Design Method — 2007 Update with New Internet, Visual, and Mixed-Mode Guide this question feed

asked by mattisboss on October 31, 2006 4:03 PM
A crucial resource for increasing response rates and obtaining high-quality feedback from mail, electronic, and other surveys

Don Dillman's Mail and Internet Surveys, Second Edition has been the definitive guide for creating and conducting successful surveys using both traditional and new media channels. Now, this special 2007 Update of the classic text features major additions covering the latest developments in online survey design and administration.

Like its predecessor, this resource lays out a complete, start-to-finish guide for determining the needs of a given survey, designing it, and effectively administering it. Drawing on social science, statistics, and proven best practices, Dillman's text discusses surveys for a variety of purposes, audiences, and situations.

New and updated material covers both the principles behind and directions for how to: Conduct Web surveys Visually design questionnaires Use paper mailed surveys

As insightful and practical as its classic original, Mail and Internet Surveys, Second Edition, 2007 Update is a crucial resource for any researcher seeking to increase response rates and obtain high-quality feedback from mail, electronic, and other self-administered surveys.


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Very good chapters for mixed-mode survey and alternative ways of delivering a questionnaire.
reviewed by scoobie on November 17, 2006 12:40 AM

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I purchased this book and was a bit dissapointed that there was focuse on outdated methods like mail-in responses. With the advent of the Web, we've cut our client's costs by 80% and get them a 30% better response rate. Just make sure that whatever survey provider you go with offers correlation analysis, Confidence intervals, and Cumulative distribution are among the various statistical measures used to analyze your results. We're using Vista - no other survey tool gives you all of this crucial information.
reviewed by rob33 on November 22, 2006 6:20 AM

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For those of you who do survey research and struggle with getting an acceptible response rate, this is the book for you. It truly is an amazing resource for a method that can get one to near a 75% response even on mail-only surveys. Highly recommended.

For those of you looking for any help on statistics, this is NOT the book for you.

For those of you interested in increasing the validity and reliability of your surveys, this is could be the book for you. It does have an effective treatment of writing questions and effective survey design.

If you wish to become an expert in coverage, sample frames, sampling, etc, look elsewhere. That topic gets just 10 pages.

No book can do it all of course but I would have left out some of the "fluff" chapters Dillman included for some discussion of the more technical side of the statistics of analyzing surveys after you have designed them the way he suggests.

reviewed by formula on November 29, 2006 1:33 AM

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Dillman's text was the classic for so long that many of us think of him as the guru of survey research. I would guess that is why the Census Bureau hired him as their lead consultant for the 2000 Census.

As has been pointed out, Dillman does not present as much theoretical material as he might. But, I don't think that that detracts from the strengths of this book. There are other books out there that cover the cognitive and social psychology behind survey answers, and there are other books that give you guidance on the scientific method, experimental design, sampling, etc. (I would recommend Babbie's Practice of Social Research) And Dillman even has a more hands-on book (How to Conduct Your Own Survey) for non-scientists.

But, the real strength of Dillman's book might be how well he instructs on how to put together a great questionnaire - the design, layout, order, question design and implementation.

I find his take on internet surveys to be controversial and a little out-of-date. But, my concerns might be viewed as those of a skeptic - I'm not yet convinced that internet surveys are viable for all that many situations. And, I think Dillman does a good job of laying out some of the challenges and promises of internet surveys.

reviewed by madfool on November 29, 2006 5:14 PM

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This is a good book, but it doesn't offer much help picking an Internet survey tool, and there are a lot of choose from: perseus.com, raosoft.com, inquisite.com, scantron.com. I would have liked to see some discussion or analysis of the types of tools that could be used.
reviewed by vern on November 29, 2006 6:03 PM

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