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Research
Notes
An
Experimental
Design
to Test
Sponsorship and Dating Effects
in
Library Questionnaire
Design
Ruth A. Pagell and Edward
J.
Lusk
The
effects
of
sponsorship
and
return
date
on
the
response
rate
to
a university
library
ques-
tionnaire
were
examined.
A survey of
personal
computer utilization
was
sent through
campus
mail
to
all
Wharton
School
faculty
and
M.B.A.
students.
Fifty
percent
of
the
surveys
had
a
re-
turn
date;
fifty
percent
did
not
have
a return
date;
fifty
percent
of
the
surveys
had
a
library
return
address;
fifty
percent
had
a
Wharton
faculty address. The response rate
for
M.B.A.'s
was
significantly higher when
both
a return
date
and faculty
address
were
in-
cluded.
Faculty
response
was
not
affected
by
ei-
ther
sponsorship
or
return
date.
Two
factors
which
are
often
used
to
stimulate
response
rates
in
surveys
are
prestigious
sponsorship
and
affixing a re-
turn
date to
the
questionnaire. Increasing
the
response
rate is
important
because it
reduces
the
potential
bias
from
non-
respondents
and
facilitates generalizing to
a
larger
group
given
the
respondents'
viewpoints. This
paper
reports
the
results
of a
study
that examined
these
two
factors
in a library survey.
EXPERIMENTAL
DESIGN
The Lippincott Library of the University
of Pennsylvania
was
interested
in
collect-
ing information
on
the
utilization of per-
sonal
computers
for online searching for
both
students
and
faculty of
the
Wharton
School of
the
University of Pennsylvania.
The
questionnaire
was
one
page
and
asked
thirteen
questions,
some
with
mul-
tiple
answer
options. The
two
populations
of interest
were
the
Wharton
teaching fac-
ulty,
defined
as
Research
Assistants,
Standing
Faculty,
and
Adjunct
Professors
(N = 226),
and
M.B.A.
students
(N = 1323).
Questionnaires
sent
to all
members
of
both
groups
were
experimentally
ar-
ranged
a follows:
• 50
percent
of
the
questionnaires
had
a
return
date affixed. The
return
date
was
one
week
after
the
distribution date.
• 50 percent of
the
questionnaires
had
no
return
date.
• 50
percent
of
the
questionnaires
had
the
following
return
address:
Intramural Mail
Ruth
A. Pagell
On-Line Search Coordinator
Van Pelt West/
CH
• 50 percent of
the
questionnaires
had
the
following
return
address
:
Ruth A. P
age
ll
is h
ead
of
publi
c
services
in
th
e
Li
pp
in
co
tt
LibranJ
and
instructor of
decisio
n
sciences
and
Edward
f.
Lusk
is
associate
professor
at
the
Whar
t
on
School,
University of P
e111rsy
l
van
i
a,
P!Ji/adc!phia,
Pennsylvnnin
19104
.
493
494 College & Research Libraries
Intramural Mail
Edward
J.
Lusk
Associate Professor/Wharton
Vance Hall/CS
The
research
hypotheses
for
both
groups
were:
Hl:
The questionnaires with the faculty
return
address will be
returned
more frequently
than
will
the
questionnaires with
the
library
return
address.
A multi-based
online
search
was
con-
ducted
to
locate articles
addressing
the
topic of
sponsorship
of
surveys
or
ques-
tionnaires.
No
articles
concerning
this
particular
topic
appeared
in
the
ERIC,
LISA,
or
Information
Science databases.
However,
the
subject
has
been
reported
in
the
literature of
other
disciplines,
where
it
is co.
ncluded
that
university
sponsorship
specifically,
and
relatively
more
"presti-
gious"
sponsorship
in
general,
has
been
shown
to
be
useful
in
many
situations to
stimulate
questionnaire
responses.
1-3
Blumberg,
Fuller,
and
Hare
offer a
few
counterexamples.
4
In
this
study,
it
was
assumed
that
the
faculty
return
address
would
be
equated
with
a university
sponsorship.
H2: The questionnaires with the
return
date af-
fixed will
be
returned
more frequently, until the
return
date passes,
than
will the questionnaires
with
no
return
date affixed.
A corrolary to H2 is
that
after
the
return
date
has
passed,
questionnaires
without
a
return
date
will
be
returned
more
frequently
than
those questionnaires
with
a
return
date.
Research
suggests
individuals will re-
turn
the
dated
questionnaires
more
fre-
quently
by
the
specified
return
date
com-
pared
to
questionnaires
with
no
return
date
affixed.5-7 But it
has
also
been
found
that
after
the
return
date
passes,
undated
questionnaires
are
received
more
fre-
quently.
s-to
November
1984
In
our
survey,
the
questionnaires
were
distributed
one
week
before
spring
break.
This
period
was
selected because, accord-
ing
to
the
Director of Admissions,
most
of
the
students
typically
"wrap
things
up"
before
the
break. After
the
break,
the
re-
turns
were
expected
to
be
negligible.
RESULTS
The
returns
during
the
seven
day
period
are
represented
in
Table
1.
After
one
week, 96.5
percent
of
the
M.B.A.
ques-
tionnaires
had
been
removed
from
their
mail folders. The
two
research
hypotheses
are
supported
by
the
data
for
the
M.B.A.
students
(p
< .075
and
p < .025
respec-
tively).
The
relationship
between
spon-
sorship
and
affixing a
deadline
for
the
M.B.A.
students
is
represented
by
the
fol-
lowing:
The Classification Table
Lusk Pagell
DATED
66
39
NOT DATED 36
44
The
X2
test
for
homogeneity
yields
p < .025.
The
odds
ratio for this classifica-
tion
table is 2.06 ·
with
a
standard
error of
.43. Therefore,
the
return
of
dated
ques-
tionnaires
with
faculty
sponsorship
is
slightly
greater
than
twice
that
of
undated
questionnaires
without
such
sponsorship.
Finally,
eleven
faculty
and
three
M.B.A.
questionnaires
were
returned
after
the
af-
fixed
return
data.
Of
these, twelve
were
not
dated.
DISCUSSION
The
faculty
and
M.B.A.
students
seem
to
react
differently
regarding
faculty/li-
brary
sponsorship
and
questionnaire dat-
ing.
There
may
be
numerous
plausible ex-
planations
for
these
differences.
However,
given
our
methodology,
such
explanations are conjectural. More impor-
tantly,
given
the
results,
two
sets of
guide-
TABLE 1
QUESTIONNAIRE RETURNS
Dated
Not
Dated
Page
II
Lusk
Page
II
Lusk Total
M.B.A. Students
39
66
44
36
185
Wharton Faculty
11
15 15 15
56
Total 50
81
59
51
241
lines are suggested
in
surveying these two
groups:
I.
Surveys of faculty
can
be
conducted
without
faculty sponsorship
without
in-
hibiting the
return
rate. Such question-
Research Notes
495
naires
should
not
have
return
dates
af-
fixed.
II.
Faculty
sponsorship
and
return
dates
seem
likely to increase
return
rates
for
M.B.A.'s.
REFERENCES
1. Achilles A. Armenakis
and
William
L.
Lett,
"Sponsorship
and
Follow-up Effects
on
Response
Quality of Mail
Surveys,"
Journal
of
Business
Research
10:251-62 (June 1982).
2.
Bob
T.
W.
Wu
and
Jana Vosika,
"Improving
Primary Research:
An
Experimental
Study
of Mail
Survey
Response,"
Journal
of
Small
Business
Management
21:30-37 (Apr. 1983) .
3. Wesley H. Jones
and
James
R.
Lang, "Reliability
and
Validity Effects
Under
Mail Survey Condi-
tions,"
Journal
of
Business
Research
10:339-53 (Sept. 1982).
4.
Herbert H. Blumberg, Carolyn Fuller,
and
Paul A. Hare,
"Response
Rates in Postal
Surveys,"
The
Public
Opinion
Quarterly
38:113-23 (Spring 1974).
5. Abbott
L.
Ferriss,
"A
Note
on
Stimulating Response to
Questionnaires,"
American
Sociological
Re-
view
16:247-49 (1951). ·
6. James
R.
Henley Jr.,
"Response
Rate to Mail Questionnaires with a Return
Deadline,"
Public
Opin-
ion
Quarterly
40:374-75 (Fall1976).
7.
A. G. Roeher, "Effective Techniques in Increasing Response to Mailed
Questionnaires,"
Public
Opinion
Quarterly
27:299-302 (1963).
8.
W. Jack Duncan, "Mail Questionnaires
in
Survey Research: A Review of Response
Inducement
Techniques,"
Journal
of
Management
5:39-55 (Spring 1979).
9.
J.
R.
Nevin
and
N.
M.
Ford, ''Effects of a Deadline
and
a Veiled Threat
on
Mail Survey
Response,''
Journal
of
Applied
Psychology
61:116-18
(1976)
.
10
.
T.
Vocino,
''Three
Variables in Stimulating Responses to Mailed
Questionnaires,''
Journal
of
Mar-
keting 41:76-77 (1977).
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