Strategies to Increase Student Response Rates to Mail Surveys

Abstract

This article discusses two studies in which different methods were used to try to improve the undergraduate student response rate to mail surveys. The first study showed that students receiving raffle tickets with their surveys were more likely to respond than those receiving no raffle ticketes; however, the differences were statistically significant only for students living in residence halls on campus (i.e., freshman and sophmores) and not for those living off-campus. The second study showed that nonrespondents who were telephoned before the second mailing of a questionnaire were much more likely to respond than those nonrespondents who were not called.