Customer Reviews

Mail and Internet Surveys: The Tailored Design Method -- 2007 Update with New Internet, Visual, and Mixed-Mode Guide

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
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Overall there appears to be some confusion over the purpose of the book, but if you are trying to improve responses and design of the actual instrument, this book is excellent. If you need help figuring out sampling and the such, you aren't ready for the book.

There are many people who do still use paper surveys and even mail them and given it's in the title, it's a bit surprising reviewers found this absurd.

Perhaps more absurd are the complaints relating to how unscientific the work is. Dillman has published a great deal in the scientific literature on how to improve the quality of the data through better visual design. That is not saying he does not understand the importance of sampling. It does indicate the book he is going to write is going to assume you have very basic understanding of survey methodology and you are looking to improve the usability of a survey with the assumption in mind.

Dillman's research provides excellent guidelines for creating visual surveys that are likely to improve the accuracy and reliability of the responses. If that's what you are looking for, it's the best book on the subject and is grounded in the literature.

If you need a book on sampling, come back to this book later.

For anyone who conducts online surveys, especially academic researchers, this is an essential text. Dillman's text is far superior to The Survey Kit by Arlene Fink. The only criticism I would offer is that Dillman assumes researchers are designing their own online surveys rather than using commercially available websites such as Survey Monkey. I would contend that the majority of survey research is conducted on commercial websites. Although these websites are changing rapidly, I would like Dillman to address this subject as well.

The 2007 version is a great update and had a lot of useful information for anyone conducting survey research. The update includes internet and mixed mode information that is relevant to the resources being used today.

A straight read with good illustrations of main points.

Definitely a must have for anyone looking at conducting a thorough large-scale survey!

If you have ever tried to write a survey or collect data without this book you made a mistake. It explicitly lays out empirically tested principles to maximize response rate and minimize error. Although it's a huge book, it is well written, clear, and to the point. I would highly recommend this book (THIS edition, don't get the 3rd edition, especially if you work with students, this one is better organized) to anyone involved in any type survey data collection.

This is a great book to have handy when thinking about and doing surveys. Unfortunately, it reads a little dated (already), especially when dealing with electronic media. May be worth waiting for the next edition to get a more contemporary approach to web-based surveys.

This book used to be commend by a lot of professors teach how to do the research, and now the new version has add many new cases keep up with the change of the world and then become more useful to us.

I read this book for a grad class in survey research methods. It's easy to read, if a little dry. Most of the example surveys come from Dillman's work, and a greater mix of the topics of the example surveys would be nice. I would definitely recommend it to students and professors who are teaching classes in this topic.

Overall a great book, but if an author is going to create a new edition, I think greater care is needed when updating sections. One small example is that the price of postage stamps (when discussing mail surveys) is still listed as 32 cents. Little things, but if I'm going to pay for an updated book, I expect all of the book to be updated to reflect the current state of affairs.