To collect data for the 1998 EE Times "Salary & Opinion Survey," 3,100 questionnaires were mailed on Friday, May 22, to a random sampling of EE Times readers whose job function is design and development engineering. We enclosed a $1 incentive and a stamped self-addressed envelope with each questionnaire. As of Thursday, July 2, a total of 681 usable returns had been returned.

In addition, 26 responses were returned blank and another 39 returns drifted in after the cut-off date. This represents a net overall response rate of 23 percent.

In theory, in 19 cases out of 20 the results based on 681 usable responses will differ by no more than 3.6 percentage points in either direction from what would have been obtained by seeking out all EE Times readers in North America. (For smaller subgroups, the potential for sampling error is greater.)

We also received 568 responses from 1,000 mailings to Nikkei Electronics Japan readers and 207 responses from 800 mailings to readers of Nikkei Electronics Asia. By country or region, the response rates were 56 percent from Japan; 34.7 percent from Hong Kong, 30.7 percent from Taiwan, 13.2 percent from Korea and 30.6 percent from Singapore. We thank the Japanese and Asian electronics managers and engineers for participating.

Return to 1998 Salary & Opinion Survey