Posted: March 9th, 2016

“Mail surveys of small business owners have notoriously low response rates, creating the potential for substantial error in surveys of this population and diminishing the credibility of research conducted on small firms

Experimentation Critique

For this paper find a research report that uses experimentation. This paper should be posted as a Word attachment in your Individual forum and should adhere to APA formatting. Prepare a critique on that experiment that addresses the following topics:

Describe the independent and dependent variables used in the study.
Comment on the sampling used to gather subjects, as well as on the reliability and validity of the study.

Only journal articles reporting actual experimentation are appropriate for this assignment-magazine or newspaper articles, opinion pieces, and commentaries are not appropriate.

Look for an abstract at the beginning of the article.
Make sure the article includes a description of the independent and dependent variables and the sampling plan.

“Mail surveys of small business owners have notoriously low response rates, creating the potential for substantial error in surveys of this population and diminishing the credibility of research conducted on small firms. The author recently carried out an experiment as part of a larger project involving 16,000 small business owner/members of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). The experiment’s purpose was to ascertain survey treatments that might enhance mail survey response among small business owners. Results showed that none of the six treatments examined improved response rates enough to warrant its routine use over the alternative, nor did any combinations of treatments help. The implication is that commonly used treatments, for example prenotification, often are unproductive Dennis, W. J. (July, 2003).”

Dennis, W.J. (July, 2003). Raising Response Rates in Mail Surveys of Small Business Owners. Journal of Small Business Management, 41(3), 278-295.