Customer Reviews

Internet, Mail, and Mixed-Mode Surveys: The Tailored Design Method

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For those of you who do survey research and struggle with getting an acceptible response rate, this is the book for you. It truly is an amazing resource for a method that can get one to near a 75% response even on mail-only surveys. Highly recommended.

For those of you looking for any help on statistics, this is NOT the book for you.

For those of you interested in increasing the validity and reliability of your surveys, this is could be the book for you. It does have an effective treatment of writing questions and effective survey design.

If you wish to become an expert in coverage, sample frames, sampling, etc, look elsewhere. That topic gets just 10 pages.

No book can do it all of course but I would have left out some of the "fluff" chapters Dillman included for some discussion of the more technical side of the statistics of analyzing surveys after you have designed them the way he suggests.

Dillman's text was the classic for so long that many of us think of him as the guru of survey research. I would guess that is why the Census Bureau hired him as their lead consultant for the 2000 Census.

As has been pointed out, Dillman does not present as much theoretical material as he might. But, I don't think that that detracts from the strengths of this book. There are other books out there that cover the cognitive and social psychology behind survey answers, and there are other books that give you guidance on the scientific method, experimental design, sampling, etc. (I would recommend Babbie's Practice of Social Research) And Dillman even has a more hands-on book (How to Conduct Your Own Survey) for non-scientists.

But, the real strength of Dillman's book might be how well he instructs on how to put together a great questionnaire - the design, layout, order, question design and implementation.

I find his take on internet surveys to be controversial and a little out-of-date. But, my concerns might be viewed as those of a skeptic - I'm not yet convinced that internet surveys are viable for all that many situations. And, I think Dillman does a good job of laying out some of the challenges and promises of internet surveys.

I have close to 20 years of experience in market research; yet with the move that many are making to conducting their research over the Internet, I knew I needed to get a lot of learning quickly, in order to better understand the trade-offs being made between cost savings and research quality. Dillman's book fills that need. Building on an earlier edition, which focused on the issues surrounding interviewing by mail, Dillman confronts issues surrounding lack of randomness, need for clarity in a self-administered-survey world, and issues of internet coverage, in drawing conclusions. Also, he has a very helpful discussion on the issues surrounding combining data collected through different methodologies at once. Dillman also discusses the need to recruit within the context of a social exchange; we are, after all, collecting information with the respondent's approval, and our generalizations are stronger when we have a good sampling plan and can maximize co-operation.

Highly recommended!

Well, this may be "the book" when it comes to surveys, but it still lacks a lot. First, I found the chapters on writing questions and organizing a questionnaire to be very useful. However, it looks like the author only added a couple chapters about Internet surveys, instead of reviewing his decades-old book in terms of the impact of the Internet. For example, I don't find it particularly useful to discuss how to fold a survey, or how to distribute it by mail, when it's being administered on-line!

Furthermore, this book is lacking any real scientific methodology. I suspect this is a result of the nature of the field, but survey designers should at least try to employ some good experimental design approaches. For example, this book does not help me at all to ensure that the survey actually gives me information that I need. While he does give information on writing interpretable questions, he has no recommendations on how to determine the goals of the survey, how to design questions that will address those goals, how to arrange questions in the survey to ensure good data that addresses those goals, etc. And what about statistical accuracy, and how certain types of questions are easier to measure? Any suggestions on how to evaluate free-response questions? Why isn't there an entire chapter on "How to avoid bias and inaccuracy in responses", instead of having suggestions scattered around the text?

This book has a lot of useful sociological hints on how to increase the response rate from a population. However, this isn't the most important aspect of surveys---it sorely lacks the scientific basis for the design and evaluation of the "experiment" that is the survey. Without this, it doesn't matter how many people respond, because the data will be useless.

Dillman is the authority on survey methodology, and this book contains a wealth of information on survey construction, administration, etc. He also includes information on the use of internet surveys, and thankfully stresses their weaknesses. As with other areas, this book stresses the design and not the nuts-and-bolts needed. It won't teach you how to write an HTML form, but it won't teach you how to run a word processor either. It will teach you how to create effective surveys that can maximize your return rate, along with proper administration.

This is a good book, but it doesn't offer much help picking an Internet survey tool, and there are a lot of choose from: perseus.com, raosoft.com, inquisite.com, scantron.com. I would have liked to see some discussion or analysis of the types of tools that could be used.

I used Dillman's method to create a mail based survey for my doctoral dissertation. My return rate was 67% by the end of the study. This book does a fantastic job of explaining each step of the process, how to craft the tools, and why certain elements are important. The text is easy to read, the directions are clearly explained with an example for each step, and process is logically presented. I have several books about survey creation which I used in my study, but this was, by far, the most helpful. I credit Dillman's methodology for my fantastic return rate. I would highly recommend this text for anyone relying on surveys to gather information.

Very good chapters for mixed-mode survey and alternative ways of delivering a questionnaire.

The third edition of Internet, Mail, and Mixed-Mode Surveys is the definitive guide to designing and implementing self-administered surveys. Anyone interested in conducting survey research would benefit from owning this book.

The book covers phone, mail, and web surveys and includes evidence-based instructions on how to maximize response rates. The authors also discuss common problems that one encounters when designing and implementing surveys and how to overcome them. Each section contains high-quality, black and white examples of survey pages and letters to respondents that can be used as models for your own work.

I call this the definitive guide, because in addition to providing instructions on how to design and implement surveys, it contains chapters devoted to better understanding the history and current practice of survey research in the United States. Chapter one provides a historical overview of survey methodology and discusses some of the challenges currently facing survey researchers. The only thing missing from this section was a table or figure showing how the response rates for different types of self-administered surveys have changed over time. I think this would have helped drive home the authors' point about the shift in people's willingness to participate in survey research. Chapter 11 contains information about the policies and procedures for conducting survey research in different institutions (i.e., the federal government, academia, and private companies) and how they can affect timelines, budgets, and the quality of the data collected. The extensive reference section serves as an excellent resource for those interested in learning more about the experimental research behind the recommendations in this book.

I used this book extensively when designing and implementing a web-based survey. The chapters on constructing survey questions and designing web surveys were very informative and easy to digest. I feel that the book was partially responsible for my survey's high response rate.

~

Other topics covered in the book, but not mentioned in this review: Panel surveys, mixed-method surveys, customer feedback surveys, and coverage and sampling.

If the survey world has a rock star, it's Don Dillman. In this tome, Dillman shares his wisdom with any and all willing to learn at his feet. What is particularly nice about this edition is that it changes with the times - extensive attention is paid to survey methods utilizing the possibilities offered by the internet.

Am I being melodramatic when I say that this book will make all of your survey dreams come true? Of course I am. It's a book on surveys, and yeah, some of the reading is dry. But in terms of the applicability of the lessons shared in the book, there's no better resource.