Intramural Mail

The effects of sponsorship and return date on the response rate to a university library ques-tionnaire were examined. A survey of personal computer utilization was sent through campus mail to all Wharton School faculty and M.B.A. students. Fifty percent of the surveys had a re-turn date; fifty percent did not have a return date; fifty percent of the surveys had a library return address; fifty percent had a Wharton faculty address. The response rate for M.B.A.'s was significantly higher when both a return date and faculty address were in-cluded. Faculty response was not affected by ei-ther sponsorship or return date. Two factors which are often used to stimulate response rates in surveys are prestigious sponsorship and affixing a re-turn date to the questionnaire. Increasing the response rate is important because it reduces the potential bias from non-respondents and facilitates generalizing to a larger group given the respondents' viewpoints. This paper reports the results of a study that examined these two factors in a library survey