NTU student seeks respondents for Employee Blog Survey

Sometime last week, a young lady by the name of Michelle Heng emailed me an invitation for a Employee blogging survey she's administering as part of her NTU (School of Communication & Information) course.

I've since emailed to her supervisor, AP Dion Goh, and verified that the request is genuine. Michelle requests that I pass the word around, so here it is:

My post-grad dissertation is about employee blogs -- specifically finding out habits, practices and beliefs of people whose blogs talk about their work. Pls help me with this online survey at this link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=480441548245

As a token of appreciation, I'm offering respondents who complete the survey and allow me access to their blogs (so i can do a qualitative analysis along with this quantitative study), a chance to win a US$50 (S$85) Amazon.com gift certificate in a lucky draw.

The online survey programme I use has a strict policy of not tracking respondents for phishing/illegal purposes and I will not publish any information I get from you without prior permission.

Here is my dissertation supervisor for verification purposes:
AP Dion Goh.

Michelle can be contacted at corp_blog@yahoo.com.sg. She's also started a blog (employeeblogsurvey.blogspot.com) and one of her post explains why she chose this topic for her dissertation.

It's always difficult to get respondents for a survey. I understand the importance of getting enough participants to make the results more substantive. Since the survey is legit, I've responded to the survey, and might as well do Michelle (and indirectly, my Alma Mater) a favour by passing the word around.

For students planning to do similar surveys, I've a few suggestions for your consideration:

• When emailing your potential respondents, it's best to provide a "Cover Letter" or a background on why you are doing the survey. Be sure to indicate your supervisor's name and contact;
• If you are starting a blog -- which is a good idea, btw -- do use your real name rather than a nickname (more credible that way);
• If you are using other web-based data collection tool, post your questions on your blog anyway;
• Give respondents the option of posting their answers in their blog (see related post by Michael Stephens, who did a similar survey for Library & Information Professionals) tool.

OK, good luck with the survey, Michelle. Oh, if I do win the Amazon gift voucher, please donate it to Children's Charity on my behalf.