I am new to on-line research. I am a sociolinguist and I started an on-line survey of bilingual English-Spanish and English-Chinese New Yorkers to get their experiences using their native/heritage languages in their private lives and in public spaces. So far, I have not received a lot of responses. If anyone has advice, I’d love to get it. I can share with you what I have tried so far. CUNY, of course, should be a rich venue for getting subjects. Please respond if you can help.

I am new to on-line research. I am a sociolinguist and I started an on-line survey of bilingual English-Spanish and English-Chinese New Yorkers to get their experiences using their native/heritage languages in their private lives and in public spaces. So far, I have not received a lot of responses. If anyone has advice, I’d love to get it. I can share with you what I have tried so far. CUNY, of course, should be a rich venue for getting subjects. Please respond if you can help.

[Priscilla Stadler]

I will be away from the office until 8/20/12. If you have questions please contact Ros Orgel at 718-482-5448 or the Center’s administration at 718-482-5462.

[Eva Fernández]

Sue, in my experience you have to target very specific populations (e.g., all Spanish speaking students in a Psych 101 subject pool), and if they have no incentive (like course credit in a Psych 101 class), you have to be satisfied with a low response rate. I understand that private sector surveyors are pretty happy with a response rate well below 5%. Let me know if you want to talk more offline.

[Sue Dicker]

Thanks, Eva. I’ll have to deal with the 5% reply rate. I know I am disadvantaged by not giving an incentive and not having a captive audience (as I would if I visited a class and asked everyone to go to the survey). As I try to get responses from the general public, I also think CUNY is also a good source of subjects, and I’ll try to find potential subjects here as well as other colleges in the area. I will continue to post facebook notices on college web pages like student clubs as the semester starts. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

[Junior Tidal]

n/t