Impact of Pre-Call Request Form and Gender Interaction on Response to a Mail Survey

Abstract

The author investigates the effect of grammatical variations in telephone prenotification and interviewer/respondent gender interaction on mail survey response rate, speed, quality, and bias. The four experimental grammatical forms were expected to differ in the amount of pressure they seem to exert on the respondent to comply. Findings suggest that rhetorical elicitation modes in the pre-call/mail survey setting influence response rate and speed, particularly for female interviewers, and do not affect response quality.