The Pine to Prairie Birding Trail Association asked researches from Nature Northwest (a collaborative project between the University of Minnesota and the Northwest Partnership) to survey a list of people that received the Pine to Prairie Birding Trail Brochure about their birding excursions to Northwest Minnesota. This web site aims at providing a preliminary assesment of the responses to the survey. If you would like a copy of the orginal survey please contact either Dr. Arscott or Dr. Loegering.

CONGRATULATIONS TO MR LESHER FROM WISCONSIN. MR. LESHER WAS CHOSEN AT RANDOM FROM OUR LIST OF PARTICIPANTS TO WIN A PAIR OF SWIFT PLOVER 8x40 BIRDING BINOCULARS VALUED AT $119.99

Methods

We mailed this survey to 1001 individuals selected from a list of 2761 names provided by the Pine to Prairie Birding Trail Association. The list was compiled by collecting names and addresses from all who requested the PTPBT brochure (via writing, e-mail, or telephone) since its inception. The development of the list was aided by an advertisement about the brochure mailed to individuals on a national American Birding Association (ABA) list. The 1001 survey recipients were selected after stratifying the list into three major geographic regions (Figure 1). The region referred to as “Band 1” included Minnesota and all bordering states (Wisconsin, Iowa, and North and South Dakota). “Band 2” was defined as states within one state of Minnesota and included Kansas, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, and Wyoming. The remaining states were lumped into “Band 3”. The demographics of the database were such that all individuals (381) in Bands 1 were included in the mailing. Bands 2 and 3 were randomly sampled to select 310 out of 404 individuals from Band 2 and 310 out of 1976 from Band 3. It was expected that the greatest number of visitors were from Band 1. Therefore, in order to ensure a maximum number of “visited” responses all individuals contained in Band 1 were included in the survey.

The mailing consisted of three phases (commonly called the Dillman method). The first mailing was posted to the recipients on 12 June 2002. This mailing included this survey and a disclaimer. The second mailing was sent out about 2 ½ weeks later and consisted of a postcard with reminder information included. The third mailing was sent out on 17 July 2002 and was a replica of the first mailing except that it was printed on blue instead of green paper.

Several (44) surveys were returned as “no forwarding address” or “incorrect address”. Therefore, we assumed 957 valid surveys reached the respondents. Response rate was good, 506 surveys were returned either partially or completely filled out, making the response rate 53.2 %. Due to the partially completed nature of many surveys, the number of responses for any given question varied. Results for each question are provided below and have been stratified in each figure to illustrate differences in response among geographic “Bands”. Answers to questions that requested “write-in” information have not been summarized (e.g., any “Other” possibility).

A summary presentation of the results of this survey is available to view here.

This research was conducted with permission from IRB: Human Subjects Committee (code #0205E24564).

Content herein has not been reviewed or approved by the University of Minnesota. The information contained in this survey is available to the public, however, the content is subject to change pending external review. The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity educator and employer.