A systematically structured self-administered questionnaire was developed
for data collection by either adopting or modifying existing measures. The
questionnaire was pretested with a total of fifty current and former users
during January–March 2001. They were heterogeneous in terms of their
demographic characteristics and the length of time they had been members
of the service. The questionnaire was revised through cognitive interviews,
a technique developed to identify problems in a questionnaire
by having respondents think aloud during or shortly after completing the
survey. The questionnaire was finalized by balancing the feedback from
the pretest participants and research experts and the reliability scores of
established scales whenever available. This first questionnaire was mailed
in March 2001. Three weeks later, a brief second questionnaire was mailed
to measure community network use, the ultimate dependent variable. This
survey research design helped ascertain the direction of influence from
the predictors to community network use.