Does anyone have an article or more that talks about the benifits or otherwise of using open-ended questions in a postal survey? I am currently trying to add this to my methods section, and I just cant find anything.

I'm sure I'm going blind.

TIA:-)

Hi Fm

You're right, lots out there on online surveys but less on postal. A lot of the material on postal surveys seems pretty dated. I did a quick trawl and apart from the few lines in various method books I found 4 which may or may not help. All seem to speak about open ended questions in relation to postal surveys. I downloaded them so let me know if you can't access and I can send them to you. I haven't read them, only skimmed them!

Porter, M., Van Teijlingen, E., Livia Chi Ying Yip, Bhattacharya, S. (2007) Satisfaction with Cesarean Section:Qualitative Analysis of Open-Ended Questions in a Large Postal Survey. Birth, 34, (2), 148-154.

Niedomys, T., Malmberg, B. (2009) Do Open-ended Survey Questions on Migration Motives Create Coder Variability Problems? Population, Space and Place, 15, 79-87.

Krosnick, J. A. (1999) Survey Research. Annual Review of Psychology, 50, 537-67.

Geer, J.G. (1988) What do open-ended questions measure? Public Opinion Q, 52, 365-71

They might be of 'some' use

A:-)

Thanks Ady!