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In the 7,697 member ANLA database,
provided to me by Craig Regelbrugge at ANLA, there were 491 member
email addresses. After piloting my survey on 30 of those members
(and one non-member), and excluding those members outside of the
continental United States, I was left with 427 ANLA member email
addreses to which I could send my survey. 77 individuals responded to my survey.
86/427 (20%) of the emails were
returned to be due to mailing error, leaving 341 ANLA members
with email who received my survey. In writing my survey (see
Methods), I broke the country into six regions, according
to the plants which were generally commonly invasive within those
regions (see Endnotes i-iv for states included
in each region and the plants considered invasive). According
to this breakdown, 173 nurseries in the Northeast received surveys,
62 in the Southeast, 13 in Florida, 20 in the Prairie, 18 in the
Southwest, 55 in the west.
96 ANLA members and 8 non-ANLA
members replied to my survey. One non-member received the email
because it was forwarded to them by a member, the other 7 directly
received the survey because they were the contact for a nursery
association included in the ANLA database, but not a member themselves.
Of the 103 who replied to me, only 77 filled out the survey. The
remaining 27 replied to tell me that they could not fill out the
survey because they were not a nursery or landscaper, but a supplier,
journalist, or nursery association. I refer to the 77 who completed
my survey as my “respondents”.
The response rates varied by region
and by medium. I gave my respondents the option of replying electronically
and by mail (by printing out the survey and filling it out by
hand). 45/77 (58%) chose to reply by mail, 32/77 (42%) chose to
reply by email. The higher proportion who chose to reply by hand,
in addition to the low proportion of ANLA members who actually
had working email (341/7697, 4.4%), indicates that the nursery
industry is probably not highly connected to the internet. The
very small representation of members included in my survey (69/7697,
0.9%), however, does not invalidate my findings – it just
indicates that my findings are descriptively valuable, not statistically
significant.
76/341 (22%) of the individuals
who received the survey directly from me replied to it. By region,
my response rate was 42/173 (24%) in the Northeast, 15/62 (24%)
in the Southeast, 4/13 (31%) in Florida, 5/20 (25%) in the Prairie,
3/18 (17%) in the Southwest, and 7/55 (13%) in the West.
Total Responses to Email Survey
|
Region
|
Sent
|
Total Received
|
Post Responses
|
Email Responses
|
Mail Error
|
Not nursery / Replied w/o responding
|
Not ANLA
|
Total Responses
|
|
Northeast[i]
|
212
|
173
|
28*
|
15
|
39
|
8
|
5
|
43*
|
|
Southeast[ii]
|
81
|
62
|
8
|
7
|
19
|
7
|
2
|
15
|
|
Florida[iii]
|
14
|
13
|
2
|
2†
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
4†
|
|
Prairie[iv]
|
26
|
20
|
2
|
3
|
6
|
2
|
0
|
5
|
|
Southwest[v]
|
21
|
18
|
2
|
1
|
3
|
3
|
0
|
3
|
|
West[vi]
|
73
|
55
|
3
|
4
|
18
|
5
|
1
|
7
|
|
Unidentifiable
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
|
Total
|
427
|
341
|
44
|
32
|
86
|
27
|
8
|
77*†
|
*indicates that one respondent
received the survey as a forward
†indicates that one respondent
was not a nursery but a nursery supplier
Because my initial email on January
26, 2000 only gathered 54 responses by February 23, I sent out
a second email on March 8, 2000. The two following tables
illustrate the breakdown for those two mailings.
First email, sent January 26, 2000
(Due February 11, 2000; came in up to February 23)
Total Completed Responses to first mailing: 54
|
Region
|
Sent
|
Post Responses
|
Email Responses
|
Not nursery / Replied
w/o responding
|
Not ANLA
|
|
Northeast[i]
|
212
|
22*
|
9
|
5
|
4
|
|
Southeast[ii]
|
81
|
4
|
7
|
1
|
1
|
|
Florida[iii]
|
14
|
2
|
2†
|
1
|
0
|
|
Prairie[iv]
|
26
|
1
|
2
|
0
|
0
|
|
Southwest[v]
|
21
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
|
West[vi]
|
73
|
2
|
1
|
4
|
0
|
|
Unidentifiable
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
Total
|
427
|
32*
|
22†
|
12
|
5
|
|
Total
Responses
|
54*†
|
|
|
|
Second email, sent March 8, 2000
(Due March 22,2000, came in up to April 10, 2000)
|
Region
|
Sent
|
Post Responses
|
Email Responses
|
Not nursery / Replied w/o
responding
|
Not ANLA
|
|
Northeast[i]
|
147
|
6
|
6
|
3
|
1
|
|
Southeast[ii]
|
61
|
4
|
0
|
6
|
1
|
|
Florida[iii]
|
9
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
|
Prairie[iv]
|
17
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
0
|
|
Southwest[v]
|
16
|
1
|
0
|
3
|
0
|
|
West[vi]
|
51
|
1
|
3
|
1
|
1
|
|
Total
|
301
|
12
|
10
|
15
|
3
|
|
Total
Responses
|
23
|
|
|
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Of the original 427 email addresses that I
sent surveys to on Januray 26, 301 did not reply to me, did not
have a mail error, or replied to indicate that they were a nursery
association.
I sent these 301 ANLA members another email survey to and asked
for more responses, I received 23. I included nursery associations
in hopes that they might forward the survey onto their members;
none did.
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