Studies of Welfare Populations Data Collection and Research Issues (2002) / Chapter Skim
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4 Paying Respondents for Survey Participation
4 Paying Respondents for Survey Participation
Pages 105-128
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From page 105... ...
We also review separately those findings that appear to be particularly relevant for low-income populations. Finally, we consider two special issues: The potential consequences of refusal conversion payments for respondents and interviewers, and the cost effectiveness of prepaid incentives.
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From page 106... ...
Furthermore, these factors assume different weights for different persons, and they become salient for a specific individual- the potential respondent when an interviewer calls to introduce the survey and request participation. From this perspective, monetary as well as nonmonetary incentives are an inducement offered by the survey designer to compensate for the relative absence of factors that might otherwise stimulate cooperation for example, interest in the survey topic or a sense of civic obligation.
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From page 107... ...
Analyzing 38 mail surveys, Church concluded that: Prepaid incentives yield higher response rates than promised incentives; The offer of contingent (promised) money and gifts does not significantly increase response rates;
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From page 108... ...
However, prepaid monetary incentives resulted in significantly higher response rates in the four studies in which it was possible to compare prepaid and promised incentives within the same study. · Money is more effective than a gift, even controlling for the value of the .
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From page 109... ...
This might be thought desirable, for example, in surveys of women on welfare in those states where incentives are counted against the value of the benefits they receive. The studies reported in the literature all mail surveys or self-administered questionnaires distributed in personhave yielded inconsistent findings (e.g., positive effects by Balakrishnan et al., 1992; Hubbard and Little, 1988; Kim et al., 1995; and McCool, 1991; no effects in four studies reviewed by Hubbard and Little, 1988, or in the experiment by Warriner et al., 1996~.
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From page 110... ...
Unlike the SIPP, all respondents to the HRS receive an incentive at each wave, but these are much lower than the refusal conversion payments. In sum, although the evidence currently available is still quite limited, that which is available suggests that the use of incentives in panel studies to increase initial response rates, convert refusals, and reduce subsequent attrition can be quite effective.
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From page 111... ...
(2000) indicate that promised and prepaid incentives reduce the tendency of older people and nonwhites to have more item-missing data, resulting in a net reduction in item nonresponse.
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From page 112... ...
bAfter refusal conversion. CExcludes noncontacts from denominator.
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From page 113... ...
(1998) in their report of an experimental effort to increase the response rate to exit polls by having interviewers in a random sample of precincts carry clipboards and folders clearly identifying them as associated with the major media and handing out pens with the same logo.
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From page 114... ...
the initial incentive or (2) refusal conversion payments, controlling for demographic characteristics.3 The offer of an initial incentive was associated with significantly different response distributions (at the .05 level)
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From page 115... ...
.5 Five other studies reported no significant effects of incentives on sample composition, and in one study the results were mixed. Since then, additional evidence has accumulated suggesting that monetary incentives can be effective in recruiting and retaining minority respondents.
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From page 116... ...
(2000) reported a similar result; in their study, the impact of incentives on response rates was significantly greater for people low on a measure of community involvement than for those high on community involvement, who tend to participate at a higher rate even without monetary incentives.
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From page 117... ...
ISSUES IN THE USE OF DIFFERENTIAL INCENTIVES Some of the research reported in the previous section suggests that it may make economic sense to offer lower incentives to people with lower incomes and higher incentives to those who are economically better off. Another instance of differential incentives is the use of refusal conversion payments, in which respondents who have expressed reluctance, or who have actually refused, are offered payment for their participation whereas cooperative respondents are not.
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From page 118... ...
study, 31 percent of respondents to the Survey of Consumer Attitudes who had not been offered any incentives 6 months earlier said, in 1997, that respondents should get paid for participating in that type of survey; 51 percent of those offered $5 said, 6 months later, that they thought respondents should get paid; and 77 percent of respondents who received $20 or $25 as a refusal conversion payment said respondents should get paid.
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From page 119... ...
However, disclosure of differential payments had no significant effect on expressed willingness to participate in a future survey, nor were respondents to whom differential incentives had been disclosed significantly less likely to respond to a new survey request, from an ostensibly different organization a year later, although again the differences were in the hypothesized direction. {OHowever, as we would expect, the perception of fairness is directly and significantly related to whether or not respondents had themselves received a refusal conversion payment.
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From page 120... ...
Several studies have concluded that prepaid incentives are cost effective in mail surveys. For such surveys, the comparison ordinarily has been among incentives varying in amount or in kind, or in comparison with no incentive at all, rather than with refusal conversion payments.
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From page 121... ...
Indeed, we have found that prepaid incentives have smaller effects on survey participation for people who score high on a measure of community activism (Groves et al., 2000) than on people who score low on this characteristic.
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From page 122... ...
Thus, the basic question addressed in this chapter is whether the payment of respondent incentives is indeed an effective means of reducing nonresponse, both for surveys in general and, especially, in surveys conducted with low-income and welfare populations. As noted in the paper, a substantial research literature consistently has demonstrated the value of incentive payments to survey respondents for increasing cooperation and improving speed and quality of response in a broad range of data collection efforts, most notably in mail surveys.
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From page 123... ...
Nevertheless, with these cautions, a few basic conclusions, guidelines, and recommendations can be gleaned from the evidence accumulated to date: 1. Consistent with an extensive literature on the use of incentives with mail surveys, prepaid monetary incentives seem to be useful in recruiting low-income and minority respondents into interviewer-mediated surveys, even when the burden imposed on participants is relatively low.
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From page 124... ...
Respondents regard this practice as unfair or inequitable, although there is no evidence that such differential payments reduce future willingness to participate in surveys, including termination of payments in subsequent waves of a panel survey in which an incentive was previously provided. However, there are suggestions that the routine use of refusal conversion payments may condition interviewers to expect (and depend on)
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From page 125... ...
Baumgartner, Robert, Pamela Rathbun, Kevin Boyle, Michael Welsh, and Drew Laughlan 1998 The Effect of Prepaid Monetary Incentives on Mail Survey Response Rates and Response Quality. Unpublished paper presented at the Annual Conference of the American Association of Public Opinion Research, St.
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From page 126... ...
James, Jeannine M., and Richard Bolstein 1990 The effect of monetary incentives and follow-up mailings on the response rate and response quality in mail surveys. Public Opinion Quarterly 54:346-361.
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From page 127... ...
Effects of Differential Incentives on Later Survey Participation in a Longitudinal Study. Unpublished paper presented at the Annual Conference of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Fort Lauderdale, FL, May 18-21.
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From page 128... ...
Public Opinion Quarterly 47:68-83. Singer, Eleanor, Nancy Gebler, Trivellore Raghunathan, John Van Hoewyk, and Katherine McGonagle 1999a The effect of incentives in interviewer-mediated surveys.
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