A Comparative Study of Research Methodology

The Internet has become a powerful tool for gathering data, communicating, and processing of transactions globally. It has also become a major market research tool used by commercial market research firms to distribute surveys to various populations. Research to date has focused on comparing response rate, response speed, and cost of direct mail and electronic mail delivered surveys. This book presents and discusses the results of a research study that directly compares response rates and response distributions to self-administered questionnaires delivered to a population of design engineers using both direct mail and electronic mail delivery media. Additional information is presented that discusses tests of the effects of credentials, and incentives on response rates for direct mail surveys.