Mail survey abroad with an alternative web survey

The large decline in cooperation in surveys experienced in the first decade of the twenty first century has placed representative surveys in a veritable quagmire, although numerous researchers have shown that the decline in the total nonresponse has been much higher in administered surveys (face-to-face and telephone) than in self-administered (mail and web surveys). The move from the “traditional” mail survey to the internet survey has brought important changes, but, at the same time, new challenges have arisen related to the lower coverage and the reduced visibility, the need for certain skills to fill out a questionnaire, changes in response rates, etc. This is a self-administered survey that informs the addressees by mail that they have been selected to participate in a research survey to which they can respond either by using the paper questionnaire (in the letter there is a prepaid envelope), by means of a web questionnaire (accessing a link and using a password), or by telephone (the respondent provided a contact time telephone number via a prepaid envelope or by calling an answering machine). The respondents themselves, therefore, choose the mode of response. An analysis of the responses achieved by each modality shows that the majority of the questionnaires were received by ordinary mail (83.6 %), 359 by internet (14.4 %), and 51 were answered by telephone (2.0 %).