Development of a standard e-mail methodology: Results of an experiment

Review of past E-mail surveys indicates that a methodology to achieve consistently high response rates similar to those that can be obtained by traditional mail has not been developed. In addition, researchers have tended to use E-mail surveys only for populations with universal E-mail access. This study utilizes knowledge from past mail-survey research to develop an E-mail procedure. Further, an experiment is conducted to assess the potential for using a multimode strategy to obtain responses from individuals unreachable through E-mail. The multimode approach proved to be successful and techniques shown to be effective in standard mail surveys were also found to be appropriate for an E-mail survey.