The impact of personalized prenotification on response rates to an electronic survey.
The purpose of this post-hoc investigation was to determine the difference in response rates between respondents who received personalized prenotification prior to receiving an electronic survey and those who did not. An electronic survey was e-mailed to 236 program directors or other designated individuals from nurse practitioner (NP) programs around the United States. Seventy six percent of the NP program directors were personally contacted about the survey in advance, and 97.5% agreed to participate. The remaining 24% were sent e-mails with a link to the survey without prenotification. Response rates for those in the prenotification group who had agreed to participate versus those who did not receive prenotification were 49% and 45%, respectively. Personalized prenotification did not affect the electronic survey response rates. Electronic research methodology offers a unique opportunity to potentially survey an entire population (e.g., nursing faculty), thus further investigation regarding factors associated with electronic survey response rates and ways to improve these rates is warranted.
University of Wyoming, USA. annmhart@uwyo.edu
Ann Marie
AM
Hart
Caitlin W
CW
Brennan
Donna
D
Sym
Elaine
E
Larson
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003479:Curriculum; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods; D034742:Electronic Mail / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005181:Faculty, Nursing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D009718:Nurse Administrators / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D009722:Nurse Practitioners / Q000193:education; D015402:Nursing Education Research / Q000379:methods; D017010:Reminder Systems; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States