POSTAL SURVEYS VERSUS ELECTRONIC MAIL SURVEYS - THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE REVISITED

The advent of computer-based technology has led to a consideration of change in research methods that exploit the advantages of computer-med iated communications. In survey research, electronic mail (e-mail) has anecdotally shown particular promise as a data collection tool. This article compares traditional postal and nontraditional e-mail surveys within the context of a larger listserv evaluation project in terms of overall return rate, distribution of survey returns over time, respon se to initial and follow-up mailings, representativeness of respondent groups, thoroughness of survey completion, and the likelihood of resp ondents to include additional written comments. in summary, whereas po stal surveys were shown to be superior to e-mail surveys with regard t o response rate all things being equal, the decision of which to use m ay be situation-specific, dependent on issues such as survey cost, des ire for convenience and timeliness in data collection, and need for hi gher response rates, among others.