Beyond Response Rates: Exploring the Impact of Prepaid Cash Incentives on Multiple Indicators of Data Quality

• Activity Number: 349
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 2, 2011 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Survey Research Methods
• Author(s): Rebecca Medway*+ and Roger Tourangeau
• Companies: University of Maryland and University of Maryland
• Keywords: incentives ; data quality

Abstract

As survey response rates continue to decline, incentives are widely used as a way to motivate sample members to respond. However, rather than simply being satisfied with increased response rates, it is also important to determine whether the use of incentives affects the quality of the resulting survey data. Several indicators of data quality that are widely used in survey research have not often been analyzed in the context of incentive experiments. For example, little is known about the effect that incentives have on the prevalence of satisficing behaviors, such as nondifferentiation or response order effects. Furthermore, the effect of incentives on the reliability of survey responses is not well understood. Using data from an incentive experiment included in a recent mixed-mode survey, this presentation will explore the effect of prepaid cash incentives on these, and other, indicators of data quality. Differential effects of incentives on data quality across modes and demographic subgroups will also be discussed.