Response Variation in E-Mail Surveys: An Exploration

As e-mail and other related technologies have diffused rapidly into a large and heterogeneous population, researchers have begun to explore the possibility of using e-mail as a tool for survey research. However. studies of the technique have primarily compared response rates for studies that use both e-mail and postal mail survey techniques. Research into e-mail as a survey method needs to develop the kind of richness that is found in the literature on traditional postal mail survey methods. This article takes a first step in developing that literature with an in-depth comparison of three studies that used e-mail surveys for data collection. Details are provided on methods for sampling and survey techniques. Hypothesized relationships between issue salience and response rate, and between pre-survey notification and response time, were generally supported.