A survey is a powerful assessment and evaluation tool available to regulatory organizations. Survey purposes include validation of professional competencies, evaluation of quality assurance programs, monitoring of trends, or assessment of members’ attitudes and perceptions. One of the benefits of the survey is that it enables data collection from a large number of stakeholders in a relatively short period of time.
Since running the survey is an investment, obtaining quality data is very important for organizations operating on a tight budget. One of the factors that impacts the quality of survey data is low response rate. Survey response rate is the ratio of the number of individuals who were invited to participate to the number of survey respondents. For example, if 1,000 people were invited to take part in a survey and only 100 people completed it, the survey response rate is 10%.
In general, low survey response rates are bemoaned by organizations for the following reasons:
- Low response rates may lead to a small sample size, thus reducing the sensitivity of statistical tests.
- Low response rates may undermine the perceived credibility of collected data in the eyes of stakeholders.
- Low response rates may limit the generalizability of collected data because of a non-response bias.
Of the three reasons listed above, the lack of the generalizability of survey data is the most significant (1). Non-response bias occurs when the answers of survey respondents differ from potential answers of those who did not respond to the survey. In this situation, survey results produce misleading conclusions that do not generalize to the entire population. If a non-response bias exists, the lower the response rate, the more misleading survey results.
Since non-response is notoriously difficult to detect and measure, regulatory organizations are recommended to focus on increasing their survey response rates. Here are some tried and true techniques for boosting survey response rate (2).
1. Promote the importance of the survey
An organization needs to emphasize potential reasons for survey participation in the cover letter. Why is survey participation important? Who will benefit from its results? For instance, survey participation may be beneficial to research. Alternatively, it may be an opportunity for stakeholders to express their opinion. The more “special” participants feel after reading the cover letter, the more likely they are to complete the survey.
2. Be personable
Addressing a participant by his or her name in the cover letter may go a long way because it will make him or her feel important. The same effect can be achieved by signing the cover letter by hand if it is a paper-and-pencil survey.
3. Tell prospective participants who is sponsoring the survey
Surveys that are sent by a highly regarded organization are more likely to be completed. Regulatory organizations are advised to send survey links from their email accounts rather than use automatic survey send-out features available in most survey software.
4. Ensure participants that their responses will be anonymous and confidential
If a survey is on a sensitive topic, an organization may have to forego an individualized salutation and make the survey anonymous. The use a third-party organization for survey administration is a popular way of managing respondents’ perceptions of survey confidentiality.
5. Provide incentives to individuals for survey completion
An example of a survey incentive is an opportunity to enter a draw to win free registration for a course or a waiver of membership fees.
6. Keep the number of questions in the survey to a minimum
A survey should be as short as possible. Keeping the survey length to a minimum may be difficult to implement, especially when the project requires assessment of a large amount of information (e.g., competency validation). Yet, there are still ways to cut out the non-essential content. An organization could focus on the most important questions and drop the rest. Other strategies include shortening or eliminating section headings, streamlining survey instructions, shortening the length of survey questions, and limiting the number of demographic questions.
7. Use follow-ups to remind individuals to complete the survey
A friendly reminder can be sent to individuals a week or a few days prior to survey completion.
(1) Rogelberg, S.G., & Stanton, J.M. (2007). Understanding and Dealing with Organizational Survey Nonresponse. Organizational Research Methods, 10, 195-209
(2) Luong, A., & Rogelberg, S. G. (1998). How to increase your survey response rate. The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist, 36(1), 61-65.