Discuss the principal advantages and disadvantages of mail surveys.
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Introduction
Mail survey is one of the data collection methods commonly used during research; it’s done on the internet by generating a series of research questions through the questionnaire. The questions that are included might be open-ended and close-ended. Mails survey is done by the research team, which formulate the questionnaire then sends them to potential respondents. In most cases, it applies to the respondents who are well acquitted with the internet and have a good educational background.
The principal advantage of a mail survey
Mail survey saves time; there is no time required for an appointment when conducting research, as compared to other forms of data collection, mail survey more practical, and due to this, it can cover a wide range of respondents with a short time.
Mail survey is very convenient; the respondents are not subjected to a lot of pressure to answer questions (Ball, 2019). They can create their own convenient time to respond to the questions without interfering with their daily schedules.
When collecting data through a mail survey, it’s very difficult to manipulate the results. This is an advantage that guarantees the quality and the reliability of the information given (LATKOVIKJ, & POPOVSKA 2019). Due to the fact that there is no one on one interview, this mail survey is anti-biasness.
Mail survey is very cheap as compared to other forms of survey, the resources that are needed to make this method work is lower as compared to other methods of data collection.
Disadvantages.
Respondents can decide not to respond to the questions; it very easy for the respondent to forget or assume the demands of the questions (Flygare, 2018). This comes when there are no pressure or some reminder to remind the respondents to act upon the questionnaire.
It requires people with literacy or educational background to use; this is limiting the whole process of research and can result in incomplete data that does represent the whole population—therefore rendering the whole process of research null and void.
Low-quality data; lack of one on one guide on how to answer questions can result in misunderstanding and misinterpretations—leading to wrong or unethical response hence affecting the quality of research.
References
Ball, H. L. (2019). Conducting online surveys. Journal of Human Lactation, 35(3), 413-417.
LATKOVIKJ, M. T., & POPOVSKA, M. B. (2019). Online research about online research: advantages and disadvantages. E-methodology, 6(6), 44-56.
Flygare, A. M., & Hedlin, D. (2018). An empirical study on the size of nonresponse bias. In Joint Statistical Meetings 2018, Vancouver, Canada, July 28-August 2, 2018.