Abstract
Using on-campus facilitators to distribute and retrieve an 11-page questionnaire administered to a nationwide sample of humanities faculty and nonhumanities department chairmen in two-year colleges resulted in an 84% return rate. The 2,000 subjects were drawn from 156 junior/community colleges selected on the basis of geographic locale and type of control. Secondary stratification variables included college size, organization, and curriculum emphasis. Accurate rosters of full-time and part-time faculty were generated from class schedules. Pilot procedures, selection of the college and faculty samples, and the use of facilitators are described.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Astin, A.W. and Panos, R.J. (1969). “The Educational and Vocational Development of College Students.” Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education.
Bayer, A.E. (1973). “Teaching Faculty in Academe: 1972–73.” Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education.
Bushnell, D.S. (1973). “Organizing for Change: New Priorities for Community Colleges.” New York: McGraw-Hill.
Champion, D. and Sear, A.M. (1969). Questionnaire response rate: A methodological analysis. Social Forces 47:335–339.
Dohrenwend, B.S. (1970–1971). An experimental study of payments to respondents. Public Opinion Q. 34:621–624.
Hackler, J.C. and Bourgette, P. (1973). Dollars, dissonance, and survey returns. Public Opinion Q. 37:276–281.
Leslie, L.L. (1973). Acceptance of the community college philosophy among faculty of two-year institutions. Ed. Admin. Q. 9:50–62.
Leslie, L.L. and Creasy, J. (1974). “The higher education faculty of Pennsylvania: Selected characteristics. Pennsylvania State University, Center for the Study of Higher Education.
Linsky, A.S. (1975). Stimulating responses to mailed questionnaires: A review. Public Opinion Q. 39:82–101.
Parsons, R.J. and Medford, T.S. (1972). The effect of advance notice in mail surveys of homogeneous groups. Public Opinion Q. 36:258–259.
Rossmann, J.E. and Astin, A.W. (1974). cost-effectiveness of differential techniques for mail questionnaires. Res. Higher Ed. 2:273–279.
Walmsley, D.J. (1973). Response rates in four Sydney surveys. Aus. N.Z. J. Sociol. 9:77–78.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Cohen, A.M. Maximizing responses to a nationwide faculty survey. Res High Educ 5, 313–319 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00993430
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00993430