Total Survey Design
Total Survey Design is a podcast for explaining the complexities of survey design. This podcast serves a diverse audience, including academics, small business owners, nonprofits, industry professionals, and students. Each season features episodes covering topics from survey utility to sample sizes, and question design to total survey error. Episode content includes insightful discussions, expert interviews, and special event coverage to enhance your survey skills and understanding.
Total Survey Design
Personal Appeals in Contact Letters: How More Appeals Means More Responses
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In this episode, I explore research by Lena Le and Thom Allen at Washington State University on the use of personal appeals in survey contact letters — the persuasive statements that encourage people to participate, like explaining how results will be used or telling respondents their opinion matters.
Analyzing 190 surveys, their data shows response rates climb from 21.6% with no appeals to 51.6% with nine. I also ran my own statistical analysis on the data, finding each additional appeal is associated with a 4.1 percentage point increase in response rate (p = 0.010). Ideal for survey researchers and anyone responsible for designing contact strategies to maximize participation.
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