A Comparison of Mail and E-Mail for a Survey of Employees in Federal Statistical Agencies

This paper reports on the results of a study comparing e-mail and mail for a survey of employees in several government statistical agencies in the U.S. As part of a larger study of organization climate, employees in five agencies were randomly assigned to a mail or e-mail mode of data collection. Similar procedures were used for advance contact and followup of subjects across modes. This paper describes the procedures used to implement the e-mail survey, and discusses the results of the mode experiment.