A checklist of characteristics of effective mail questionnaires was developed that reflects some degree of consensus among experts in survey research and that can serve as a guide to novices designing a questionnaire. Journal and book sources of information about mail questionnaires were reviewed to yield 83 items in 7 categories that comprised…

The potential effect of survey timing on information about teaching employment rates for teacher education program graduates was studied. It is possible that the low rates found by some surveys are more a result of the time of the survey than of low response rate. A secondary purpose was to obtain information about the hiring practices of school…

This study of teacher education graduate follow-up surveys examined the relationship between response rate and number of graduates, questionnaire length, and follow-up contacts. Also, the study investigated survey practices differentiating between surveys which had high and low return rates in such areas as number of follow-up contacts,…

Different formats for four types of research items were studied for ease of computer data entry. The types were: (1) numeric response items; (2) individual multiple choice items; (3) multiple choice items with the same response items; and (4) card column indicator placement. Each of the 13 experienced staff members of a major university's Data…