Response rates

A topic in research methodology

In a free, democratic society, no one is required to help researchers in their studies and people may decline to do so.

This is a particular issue in surveys which can sometimes have very low response rates.

Read about surveys

In general we might distinguish between studies where the researchers have a pre-existing relationship with those surveyed, and those where they do not. So, for example, if a teacher surveys the students she teaches, or an organisation surveys its members, we might expect the response rates to be more favourable than when the persona being asked to respond does not know,and perhaps indeed has not heard of, the researchers asking them to commit some time, and reveal provide information.

It also clearly makes a difference how the survey is facilitated. If time is put aside in a lecture to respond to a survey about the lecture course then it becomes an active choice not to complete the survey, whereas if the class members are asked to complete the survey in their own time then it requires a positive decision to spend time on the activity.

Example

Topic	Sample	Context	Response rate	Source
Perceptions of on-line homework	Students taking a university course	Completed in a lecture on the course concerned	70%	Richards-Babb, Curtis, Georgieva & Penn, 2015

Work cited:

Richards-Babb, M., Curtis, R., Georgieva, Z., & Penn, J. H. (2015). Student Perceptions of Online Homework Use for Formative Assessment of Learning in Organic Chemistry. Journal of Chemical Education, 92(11), 1813-1819. doi:10.1021/acs.jchemed.5b00294