ABSTRACT
Purpose
Summarize design strategies for expanding saliency of campus climate surveys. Climate surveys that measure the prevalence of sexual assault at colleges or universities have become more common; however, the optimal survey design for a particular school is not always clear. This review examines the design and data collection methods schools have used to administer climate surveys from 2014 to 2019.
Method
A systematic search of 115 campus climate survey reports from 68 schools was performed. Response rates for five design features – incentives, selection method, field period, survey reminders, and multiple survey administrations – were summarized to determine the design that minimizes bias best.
Results
Response rates vary across each design feature. The type of incentive and frequency of reminder e-mails appear to have the greatest influence on response rates.
Discussion and conclusion
The recommended design features that best improve response and likely reduce bias are a hybrid sample design with mixed $10 promised and lottery incentive, a 4-week field period, and more than one reminder e-mail per week in field.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Supplementary material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/26408066.2022.2083460