A three-factor analysis of variance was used to determine the effects of topic and length of questionnaire and recipients' community on rates of response to a mail survey. Four topics, two questionnaire lengths and three types of communities were studied; each cell (topic × length × city) contained data for 50 households. Large city dwellers were more likely to respond than small town dwellers, and the response rate of an allegedly over-sampled city was not significantly different from that of another city of similar size. Questionnaire's topic and length did not affect return rates, and there were no interactions.
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