The National Study of Writing Instruction - University at Albany

The majority of the items on both versions of the questionnaire were precoded, with room for
additional comments, typically through an option to select “Other (please specify).”
Copies of both questionnaires are included in Appendix 4.
Procedures
The survey was conducted following D. Dillman’s tailored design methodology (Mail and
internet surveys, Second edition. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2007). This suggests a series
of 5 contacts with each person in the sample, with each contact differing in look and feel. The
steps in the present study included:
1) An initial letter requesting participation and asking the teachers to set aside time to
complete the questionnaire, which would follow in about a week.
2) A first mailing of the survey, with a cover letter emphasizing the importance of having
accurate information about current practice, given the pressures on schools and
teachers; a copy of Form 1 or Form 2; a $2 token of appreciation; and a hand-stamped
reply envelope.
3) Two weeks later, a postcard reminding everyone to complete the survey, and thanking
those that already had.
4) A telephone call to all non-respondents, requesting participation and offering to send
another copy of the survey if it had been misplaced.
5) A final letter to all non-respondents, again emphasizing the importance of having
responses from everyone, and including a replacement copy of the survey and a
replacement hand-stamped reply envelope.
Questionnaires were logged in as they were returned, entered into an SPSS database, and
checked for out of range values. School identifiers from the NCES Common Core of Data (CCD)
were also added so that each questionnaire could be linked to all of the items in the CCD.
These included information on school enrollments, race/ethnicity, eligibility for free or reduced
price lunch, Title I eligibility, and student/teacher ratio.
Analysis of Response Rates and Non-Responders
Follow up of non-responders revealed 162 teachers who (in spite of pre-survey verification of
names and addresses) were no longer teaching at the school, had changed subject areas, been
promoted, had died, or had gone on long-term leave. From the 5918 teachers that remained in
the sample, 1520 responses were received, an overall response rate of 25.7%. There were no
significant differences among response rates by subject area, which ranged from a high of
26.1% for science teachers to a low of 24.8% for math teachers.
Analyses of background variables provided by Market Data Retrieval, Inc., indicated very few
differences between responders and non-responders (Tables 9 and 10). There were no
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