The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of two techniques for increasing response rates to mailed questionnaires, namely, type of covering letter salutation (handwritten vs typed) and return postage (metered vs nonmetered). Surveys were sent to 300 randomly selected members of the National Council for Measurement in Education. A 2 × 2 factorial analysis of variance showed typed salutations were more effective than handwritten salutations in eliciting responses from this professional population. No differences in response rates were found between metered and nonmetered return envelopes.
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