Sponsorship and follow-up effects on response quality of mail surveys

Do Non-Response Follow-Ups Improve or Reduce Data Quality?: A Review of the Existing Literature

“…For example, students with high grade point averages are more likely to participate in surveys and are better reporters of their grade point average than low grade point average students, even in studies where the topic is not academic achievement (Olson, 2007; Olson and Kennedy, 2006). Demographic characteristics of the sampled person such as education, age or sex are other ‘personal characteristics’ that may be related to both a person's response propensity and quality of data (Armenakis and Lett, 1982; Cannell and Fowler, 1963; Kaminska et al ., 2006; Mason et al. , 2002; Olson, 2006; Olson and Kennedy, 2006; Safir and Tan, 2009).…”

“…Most of the studies that look at the association between follow‐up attempts and measurement quality are mail surveys (Armenakis and Lett, 1982; Cannell and Fowler, 1963; De Leeuw and Hox, 1988; Diaz de Rada, 2005; Donald, 1960; Eckland, 1965; Gilbert et al. , 1992; Green, 1991; Helasoja et al.…”

“…In the fourth scale, although a statistically significant difference between the mailings was observed, reliability did not monotonically decrease. Six additional measures examined are acquiescence, extreme responses, middle responses, inconsistent responses over logically related questions, multiple responses to single‐response questions or a combination thereof (Armenakis and Lett, 1982; Diaz de Rada, 2005; Kaminska et al. , 2006; Yan et al.…”