{"id":6151,"date":"2017-10-20T14:59:34","date_gmt":"2017-10-20T21:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/neo\/?p=6151"},"modified":"2019-09-24T10:10:43","modified_gmt":"2019-09-24T17:10:43","slug":"social-exchange-theory-and-questionnaires-part-2-communication-and-distribution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/nec\/2017\/10\/20\/social-exchange-theory-and-questionnaires-part-2-communication-and-distribution\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Exchange Theory and Questionnaires Part 2: Communication and Distribution"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Handshake<\/a>Last week<\/a> we talked about how to think about questionnaire design in terms of social exchange theory – how to lower perceived cost and raise perceived rewards and trust in order to get people to complete a questionnaire.<\/p>\n

But there’s more to getting people to complete a questionnaire than its design.\u00a0 There are the words you use to ask people to complete your questionnaire (often in the form of the content of an email with the questionnaire attached).\u00a0 And there’s the method of distribution itself – will you email? Mail? Hand it to someone? How many times should you remind someone?<\/p>\n

As we have said in the previous post, Boosting Response Rates with Invitation Letters\u00a0<\/a>, we recommend the Dillman\u2019s Tailored Design Method (TDM) as a technique for improving response rates.\u00a0 In TDM, in order to get the most responses, you might communicate with your respondents four times. For example, an introduction email before the questionnaire goes out, the email with the questionnaire attached, and two reminders. How does this fit with social exchange theory?<\/p>\n

Let’s go back to the three questions we said in the last post that you should always consider, and apply them to communication about and distribution of your questionnaire:<\/p>\n