Effects of Personalization and Invitation Email Length on Web-Based Survey Response Rates

Individual strategies to increase response rate and survey completion have been extensively researched. Recently, efforts have been made to investigate a combination of interventions to yield better response rates for web-based surveys. This study examined the effects of four different survey invitation conditions on response rate. From a large metropolitan university in the West, a group of 1,598 selected students were randomly assigned to four groups, each of which received a different version of the invitation email to participate in a survey of campus technology needs. Findings show that neither the degree of personalization nor the length of the invitation email impacted survey response or completion. Additionally, the outcomes demonstrated the impact of research-based “best practices” and their impact on overall response rate

Smart labs and social practice: social tools for pervasive laboratory workspaces: a position paper

The emergence of pervasive and ubiquitous computing stimulates a view of future work environments where sharing of information, data and knowledge is easy and commonplace, particularly in highly interactive settings. Much of the work in this area focuses on tool development to support activities such as data collection, data recording and sharing, and so on. We are interested in this kind of technical development, which is both challenging and essential for science communities. But we are also interested in a broader interpretation of knowledge sharing and the human/social side of tools we develop to support this. We are keen to know more about how groups of different kinds of scientists can make their work understandable and shareable with each other in a multidisciplinary setting. This is a complex task because boundaries and barriers can emerge between disciplines engendered by differences in discourses and practices, which may not easily translate into other discipline areas. In the worst case, there may be some hostility between disciplines, or at least doubt and scepticism. Nevertheless, sharing approaches to research, research expertise, data and methods across disciplines can be a very fruitful exercise, and encouragement to engage in this activity is particularly pertinent in the digital era. Issues of privacy and security are also key aspects – knowing when and how to release data or information to other groups is crucial to providing a safe environment for people to work, and there are several sensitivities to be explored here. In this paper we describe an evolving situation that captures many of these issues, which we aim to track longitudinally

Response rates for mailout survey-driven studies in patients with head and neck cancer

Background: Mailout survey studies are becoming more prevalent in the head and neck literature. The objective of this paper is to summarize response rates in patients with head and neck cancer, and to provide recommendations surrounding methodology used to design and implement mailout survey questionnaires. Methods: The results of this paper are from a study assessing the measurement properties of the Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand Questionnaire (DASH) in head and neck cancer patients. A modified Dillman tailored design approach was used. Results: The methods used yielded a response rate of 80% with this patient population. Conclusion: This is a considerably higher response rate than other reports in the oncology literature. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Head Neck, 2010Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78489/1/21363_ftp.pd

Business Model Development in IT Startups - The Role of Scarcity and Personalization in Generating User Feedback

Despite the widely recognized importance of continuous business model development for achieving product market fit, very little remains understood about efficient methods that may support this process in the context of nascent IT ventures. Contributions for supporting value proposition development, especially in the popular field of open innovation, have largely focused on well established firms and more traditional approaches such as the lead user method. More recent findings suggest novel ways of virtual user integration, like the collection of user feedback via promotional campaigns, which is particularly prevalent among IT startups. However, these contributions have remained conspicuously theoretical. Therefore, by drawing on an experimental study in the context of the artificially created online fashion startup StyleCrowd, we investigate the role of scarcity and personalization, two classical promotional cues that have become ubiquitous on the web yet have been overlooked by research, in enhancing the virality of nascent ventures’ online promotional campaigns to enhance user feedback. Our analysis reveals that while scarcity cues affect social sharing regardless of whether a campaign is personalized or not, personalization cues are particularly effective when scarcity is absent, yet are cancelled out when scarcity is prevalent. We discuss implications for research and practice

Creating and validating self-efficacy scales for students

Purpose: student radiographers must possess certain abilities to progress in their training; these can be assessed in various ways. Bandura’s social cognitive theory identifies self-efficacy as a key psychological construct with regard to how people adapt to environments where new skills are developed. Use of this construct is common in health care literature but little has been noted within radiographic literature. The authors sought to develop a self-efficacy scale for student radiographers. Method: the scale was developed following a standard format. An initial pool of 80 items was generated and psychometric analysis was used to reduce this to 68 items. Radiography students drawn from 7 universities were participants (N=198) in validating the scale. Results: the psychometric properties of the scale were examined using analysis of variance (ANOVA), factor analysis and item analysis. ANOVA demonstrated an acceptable level of known group validity: first-year, second-year, and third-year students all scored significantly differently (P=.035) from one another. Factor analysis identified the most significant factor as confidence in image appraisal. The scale was refined using item and factor analysis to produce the final 25-item scale. Conclusion This is the first published domain-specific self-efficacy scale validated specifically for student radiographers. In its current format it may have pedagogical utility. The authors currently are extending the work to add to the scale’s validity and embedding it into student training to assess its predictive value

Service-Learning and Volunteering: Does the Course Matter?

One of the greatest challenges facing third-sector organizations is attracting and retaining sufficient, qualified volunteers to develop and deliver their programs. Often, college-educated individuals are uniquely suited for this volunteer role. Many colleges and universities are using Service-Learning (S-L) as a vehicle to educate students on the importance of social and community issues. In 2006, Campus Compact member university students contributed $7.1 billion, using the Independent Sector’s annual value of$18.77 per hour, with 91% of Campus Compact member universities offering some Service-Learning courses Some nonprofit scholars argue that Service- Learning at the collegiate level will increase the extent of volunteering by these students after graduation (see for example Astin, Sax and Avalos 1999). The purpose of this paper is to compare the post-graduate volunteer experiences of students who completed two different available Service-Learning classes on two dimensions: the level of post-graduate volunteering and the perceived value of post-graduate volunteering

Development and implementation of an Internet-based survivorship care program for cancer survivors treated with hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

The Internet provides a widely accessible modality for meeting survivorship care needs of cancer survivors. In this paper, we describe the development and implementation of an Internet site designed as a base from which to conduct a randomized controlled trial to meet psycho-educational needs of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) survivors

Estrategias para mejorar la respuesta de las encuestas en línea

Una visión histórica de las herramientas de recogida de información desvela un progresivo descenso de las encuestas cara a cara y telefónicas, que han sido sustituidas por las autoad-ministradas. Los avances tecnológicos han supuesto un gran incremento de las encuestas a través de la red en la segunda década del siglo xxi. Ahora bien, muchas de estas investigacio-nes presentan tasas de respuesta muy bajas, algunas de menos de dos dígitos. Para solventar esta situación, este trabajo presenta cinco estrategias efectivas para mejorar la respuesta de las encuestas a través de la red. Concretamente, poner máximo cuidado en el acceso a la persona encuestada, contactar varias veces con la muestra objetivo, ajustar la duración del trabajo de campo, notificar a la persona que se va a encuestar que ha sido seleccionada para participar en una investigación, y utilizar gratificaciones. La aplicación de estas consigue un notable aumento de la tasa de respuesta y, además, una mejor representatividad muestral.A historical overview of data collection tools shows a progressive decline in face-to-face and telephone surveys, as they have been replaced by self-administered surveys. Technological advances in recent years have led to a vast increase in the use of online surveys. However, many of these studies have had very low response rates, some in the low double digits. To remedy this situation, this paper outlines five effective strategies for improving response rates to online surveys. These specifically involve taking the utmost care when accessing respondents, contacting the target sample several times, adjusting the duration of fieldwork, informing respondents in advance that they have been selected to participate in the survey, and the use of rewards. The application of these strategies achieves a significant increase in response rates and better sample representativeness

Economic valuation in Web surveys:A review of the state of the art and best practices

This paper is a review of the currently existent economic valuation surveys (with stated preference methods) developed for and administered through the web. Valuation surveys that employ stated preference techniques are not particularly verbose about the details of their web development or administration. Web surveys for economic valuation are a new, interest raising field, given the worldwide continually increasing computer literacy and internet access. Currently most web valuation studies are concerned with the valuation of a topic of interest (mostly from environmental and energy economics) and hardly few, if any at all, are concerned with the experimentation on the web opportunities themselves and the effect they have on the results of the studies. The paper also presents the advantages of web survey and contributes to consolidating an informed state of the art for field practitioners, developers and reviewers of relevant papers

Testing a scale to measure food business legitimacy

A well-developed body of knowledge exists about how small businesses can achieve legitimacy, but the canon of literature is profoundly lacking tangible information about the criteria for legitimacy in the food sector. The purpose of this study was to test, extend, and validate the Johnson and Dibrell legitimacy scale (Johnson, Dibrell, Holcomb, & Craig, 2007), which seeks to operationalize a scale to measure legitimacy forms and legitimating strategies of food businesses. This study employed a quantitative research design to address the three research objectives for this study. Data for this study were collected with a questionnaire instrument administered on the Internet to a sample of food processors and manufacturers who have worked with the Robert M. Kerr Food & Agricultural Products Center in Oklahoma. Statistical analyses, including descriptive statistics, principal components analysis, and tests of validity and reliability were applied to: a) use the Johnson and Dibrell legitimacy scale to measure the extent to which participating firms engage in behaviors related to legitimacy forms and legitimating strategies, b) evaluate to what extent factors of the Johnson and Dibrell legitimacy scale instrument explain the variance in the pattern of relationships among items, and c) evaluate reliability and validity of the Johnson and Dibrell legitimacy scale instrument. Findings indicated respondents' firms were more likely to engage conformance strategies and behaviors related to regulatory legitimacy and less likely to engage in manipulation and selection strategies than other legitimating strategies and legitimacy forms. Data from this study reveal nine components contributed to 79.95% of the explained variance in the pattern of relationships among the items, and coefficient values for five of the components exceeded the widely-accepted alpha threshold of .70