Two forestland owner surveys were conducted during 1985 and 1986 to examine the characteristics, attitudes, and motivations of nonindustrial private forest landowners in Iowa. The first part of this paper examines the effect of response order bias in telephone surveys. Unlike previous studies that found little effect from response order bias in other types of surveys, response order bias was shown to have a significant influence on response patterns. In the second part, a measure for assessing attitudes toward land stewardship is proposed. A model of land stewardship is also proposed and tested using factor analysis. The factor analysis of the land stewardship scale failed to support the apriori assumptions about the nature of attitudes toward land stewardship. Three attitude scales were developed for use in parts three and four and a revised model of land stewardship is proposed. The third section examines factors that are influencing management of private forestland holdings. Landowner characteristics, such as age, education, and gross income, were found to be positively related to forestland management. Timber production, recreation, investment, and wildlife, as reasons for owning forestland, also showed a positive relationship to management. A number of attitude scales that measured attitudes toward the environment and decision making were also included. The overall results indicated that forestland managers tend to be interested in multiple benefits from their forest and show a concern for the environment. A proposed method of characterizing non-industrial private forest landowners is presented in the fourth part. Five types of NIPF landowners are identified, including retired farmers, agriculturalists, timber agriculturalists, farm stewards, and grazing enthusiasts. Following the presentation of NIPF landowner types, a discussion of the usefulness of the information is presented.