Further Evidence on Factors Affecting Response Rates to Mailed Questionnaires

Abstract

Further evidence, replicating and supplementing work reported by Heberlein and Baumgartner in ASR 43 (1978), is reported on the net effect of factors affecting response rates to mailed questionnaires. The structure of a return rate predicting model computed for the earlier data is largely supported in the replication. The replication also investigates the consequences of the type of target population. The effect of city size, education, and occupation can largely be comprehended in terms offactors such as the salience of the research topic. Males, however, reveal significantly higher returns than females, even when salience and field procedures have been accounted for.