Hinton, Dawn (author) and Ofori-Dankwa, Joseph (author)
Format:
Book chapter
Publication Date:
2010
Published:
International
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D02162
Notes:
Pages 103-120 in Blessing M. Maumbe (ed.), E-agriculture and e-government for global policy development: implications and future directions. Information Science Reference, Hershey, Pennsylvania. 321 pages., Emphasizes ways information technologies can be used to encourage community orientation in the face of modernization.
pgs. 1423-1448, Via online journal, Researchers who are interested in small towns and rural communities in the United States often find that they need to conduct their own sample surveys because many large national surveys, such as the American Community Survey, do not collect enough representative responses to make precise estimates. In collecting their own survey data, researchers face a number of challenges, such as sampling and coverage limitations. This article summarizes those challenges and tests mail and Internet methodologies for collecting data in small towns and rural communities using the U.S. Postal Service’s Delivery Sequence File as a sample frame. Findings indicate that the Delivery Sequence File can be used to sample households in rural locations by sending them invitations via postal mail to respond to either paper-and-pencil or Internet surveys. Although the mail methodology is quite successful, the results for the Internet suggest that Web surveys alone exclude potentially important segments of the population of small towns and rural communities. However, Web surveys supplemented with postal questionnaires produce results quite similar to those of mail-only surveys, representing a possible cost savings for researchers who have access to Web survey capabilities.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D00578
Notes:
Pages 47-54 in Arnold Pichot and Josef Lorenz (eds.) ICT for the next five billion people: information and communication for sustainable development. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. 122 pages.
