Chapter Three LITERATURE REVIEW OF WEB （第三章文献综述的网络）.pdf

Chapter Three LITERATURE REVIEW OF WEB AND E-MAIL SURVEYS In this chapter, we examine what has been written about Internet surveys in the literature, specifically Web and e-mail surveys. We address the topics of response rate, cost, timeliness, sources of error, 1 and data quality. We compare two conventional survey modes, mail and telephone, with Internet survey modes. The other widely used conventional mode, face-to-face interviewing, is not addressed here because little has been written about it in comparison with Web and e-mail surveys given the high cost of in-person interviewing.2 A BRIEF HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC SURVEYS Beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s, prior to the widespread use of the Web, e-mail was explored as a survey mode.3 As with the Web today, e-mail offered the possibility of nearly instantaneous transmission of surveys at little or no cost. Unlike the Web, however, early e-mail was essentially static, consisting of a basic ASCII (text- ______________ 1The literature contains far more information about response rates than about any other topic related to surveying, such as timeliness or data quality. Appendix B con- tains a more detailed discussion of response rates in the literature and Appendix C lists the survey topic, sample size, type of sample, contact/response/follow-up mode, and response rate for each study referenced in this report. 2We do not address other electronic survey modes that are currently in use, such as computerized self-administered questionnaires (CSAQs), which are surveys dis- tributed via computer diskette. Two other electronic modes, CAPI and CATI, as we noted earlier, are unrelated to the development of the Internet and therefore we do not discuss them in this report. 3It is worth noting that the survey literature as late as