Two Investigations Into the Influence of Incentives and Subject Characteristics on Mail Survey Responses in Teacher Education

Abstract

Two investigations were conducted to examine whether incentives in crease the number of survey returns from former students and whether ideographic characteristics, incentives, and multiple mailings influence perceptions of respon dents. Sampling former students (graduates of teacher education programs) across years of experience and level of teaching did not result in response bias from these characteristics. Second, using small monetary incentives ($.25, $.50, $1.00) and a raffle for a professional journal to encourage responding to a survey was unproduc tive, whereas establishing a communication network (newsletters) with former students was productive. Third, using multiple requests to increase the number of returns did not affect item response patterns across mail-out requests. EDUCATIONAL DECISION MAKERS expend substantial resources in gathering perceptional data from students, former students, and colleagues regarding existing programs and proposed plans and experiences. This ob servation is particularly appropriate in teacher education where institutions are required to evaluate their programs in order to meet accreditation re quirements of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and state departments of education. Information-gathering ef forts that employ survey techniques often play an important role in pro viding data for academic planning and policy decisions as well (Galluzzo & Craig, 1990). Given limited resources of personnel and funds plus demand ing time schedules, the mail questionnaire often is the most feasible tech nique for obtaining survey data. Yet the validity and utility of this approach to data gathering depend on the response ratio (decimal value of individuals surveyed who complete and return the instrument) as well as response quali ty (whether respondents actually complete the returned instrument).