1978 OATS SURVEY REPORT

A mail survey was conducted in 1977 of farmers who were thought to be oats producers, using names obtained from several lists. The purpose of the 1977 mail survey was to obtain answers to the following questions: (1) What kind of farmer grows oats, (2) Where does he grow them, (3)Why does he grow them, (4) How does he produce them? Answers to these questions should enable the breeding program and the Extension Program at the University of Minnesota to better address the problems of oat production and thus maintain, or hopefully improve the relative competitive ability of oats as a crop in Minnesota.Crop Production/Industries,

Estimating Nonresponse Bias in Mail Surveys

Valid predictions for the direction of nonresponse bias were obtained from subjective estimates and extrapolations in an analysis of mail survey data from published studies. For estimates of the magnitude of bias, the use of extrapolations led to substantial improvements over a strategy of not using extrapolations

Monetary Incentives in Mail Surveys

Eighteen empirical studies from fourteen different researchers provide evidence that prepaid monetary incentives have a strong positive impact on the response rate in mail surveys. One of these studies is described here and an attempt is made to generalize from all eighteen about the relationship between size of incentives and reduction in nonresponse. These generalizations should be of value for the design of mail survey studies

Forest management and wildfire risk in inland northwest

This brief reports the results of a mail survey of forest landowners in northeastern Oregon conducted in the fall of 2012 by the Communities and Forests in Oregon (CAFOR) Project at the University of Colorado and the University of New Hampshire in cooperation with Oregon State University College of Forestry Extension. The mail survey--a follow-up to a telephone survey conducted for the counties of Baker, Union, and Wallowa in the fall of 2011 -was administered to understand who constituted forest landowners in these three coun¬ties and their perceptions about forest management on both public and private land, as well as risks to forests in the area and the actions they have taken to reduce those risks. The respondents indicated that they perceive wildfire as the greatest threat to their lands, and they consider cooperation with neighbors as very or extremely important for land management. Forest landowners believe public lands are managed poorly and see a greater risk of wildfire occurring on neighboring public land than on their own land. Their opinions on land management are not strongly related to background factors or ideology (for example, gender, age, political party, wealth) but may be heavily influenced by personal experience with wildfire

PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS REGARDING GROWTH OF THE DAIRY INDUSTRY IN ILLINOIS

Community opposition to dairies has altered location decisions by milk producers. Our objective was to identify residents' perceptions towards dairy by individual and community characteristics. A mail survey of residents of dairy counties and non-dairy counties was conducted. Dairy county residents were more willing to live close to a dairy.Livestock Production/Industries,

Practical implications of nonresponse bias in sample surveys : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Studies at Massey University

Researchers world-wide are concerned about a decline in survey response rates. One consequence of such a decline is the potential for increasing nonresponse bias. This research reports the results of an attempt to establish a tentative 'minimum acceptable response rate' at which the interim estimates for two surveys did not differ significantly from final estimates. Data from a mail survey with a sample of 1270 respondents randomly selected from New Zealand electoral rolls, and from a telephone survey with a sample of 183 respondents randomly selected from five telephone directories were used for the research. The results indicate that a tentative 'minimum acceptable response rate' may be close to 50%. The study found that, at a response rate of 48%, demographic and awareness variables were prone to nonresponse bias in the telephone survey, and that altitude and demographic variables had a very low potential for nonresponse bias in the mail survey at a response rate of 51%. Perhaps researchers can now be more confident that a response rate close to 50% is acceptable for many practical purposes. Ultimately, however, the potential for nonresponse bias in a particular survey will depend on the demographic characteristics of respondents and nonrespondents and the strength of the relationship between these characteristics and the key variables of interest