An Exploratory Analysis of Family Social Science Mail Survey Response Rates

Abstract

Dillman (1978) has aggressively promoted his Total Design Method as a proven technique for generating higher response rates to social science surveys. Many university faculty teach his technique on the assumption that its use will generate high response rates for the individual student who uses it faithfully in thesis or dissertation research. In an exploratory assessment of six of Dillman's mail survey steps—quality of covering letter, use of follow-ups, importance of the study, survey's appearance or readability, survey's length, and type of sample (general public or specialized population)—with 15 family social science surveys, we found that, despite the small sample size, type of sample, and follow-up predicted mail survey response rates, as did a summary measure of the use of all six steps. The results suggest that the Total Design Method's mail survey steps are useful even for low-cost research by graduate students.