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1 Donna Stienstra, Rules of Thumb for Designing and Administering Mailed Questionnaires 1 (1995)

handle is hein.congcourts/rthumda0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Rules of Thumb for Designing and Administering Mailed Questionnaires Donna Stienstra Federal Judicial Center The purpose of these rules of thumb is to improve the rate of response to mailed question- naires and to enhance the accuracy of the data obtained. This paper covers four topics: questionnaire format, question design, the cover letter, and administration of a questionnaire. The rules are based on the experience of the staff in the Research Division at the Federal Judicial Center and on several useful publications on questionnaire design: Don Dillman, Mail and Telephone Surveys, Wiley and Sons, Inc. (1978) Jean Converse and Stanley Presser, Survey Questions: Handcrafting the Standardized Questionnaire, Sage Publications (1986) GAO, Developing and Using Questionnaires, 1986 A mailed questionnaire is much more likely to be completed and returned if it makes sense and is friendly and easy to use. The rules of thumb listed below have these goals in mind. They were originally developed for general population surveys, but most appear to be applicable to specialized audiences as well (e.g., judges and attorneys). Unlike general audiences, however, specialized audiences will probably tolerate more complex questions and response categories. Although the wording of individual questions is extremely important, you should also give careful attention to the questionnaire's layout, since a confusing or unattractive layout can provoke a negative reaction from respondents and can make data entry more difficult and therefore error-prone. Likewise, you will want to spend some time preparing a cover letter that will persuade the respondents to return the questionnaire. You will also want to give attention to the administration of the questionnaire, such as whether to have it printed and how many follow-up mailings to do. Administration of a questionnaire requires careful advance planning and is an important factor in getting questionnaires into the hands of the correct recipients and back into your hands. This document assumes you've decided a mailed questionnaire is the best method for getting the information you need. That decision should be made carefully, with full recognition of the limitations as well as the advantages of questionnaires. (For a discussion of limitations and advantages see the GAO publication listed above, which is particularly helpful because it is aimed at developing questionnaires for specialized audiences.) Although questionnaires can reach many subjects at a relatively low cost compared to other methods, they are limited to the words on paper. That is why books on questionnaire design put so much emphasis on the wording of questions. Each word you choose stimulates a thought or picture in the mind of the reader. The more precise the word, generally, the more precise the picture in the mind of the reader. Where it is hard to find precise words, questionnaires may not be a very good instrument for your study. If your subject matter is complex or volatile or unfamiliar, for example, you should think about whether a questionnaire can obtain the information you need. For some

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