Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies: U.S. Incentive Experiment
Hongsheng Hao
Westat
Tom Krenzke
Westat
Leyla Mohadjer
Westat
Sponsored by the National Center for Education Statistics, the U.S. Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) field test data collection occurred between September and November 2010. Each participant was administered an in-person background questionnaire, and a literacy assessment. An experiment was designed to evaluate the impact of increasing the incentive amount from $35 to $50 to account for the added burden of a longer interview and assessment than past literacy surveys and the increased complexity of the PIAAC computer-based assessment. Incentive payments were randomly assigned to each segment (clusters of dwelling units within PSUs), so that each interviewer was assigned both incentive amounts to minimize any interviewer impact. The statistical analyses were conducted to examine differences between refusal rates, number of attempts and item response rates at the two incentive levels for the screener, background questionnaire (BQ), and screener and BQ combined. The analysis results provided support for an increase to the incentive amount for the PIAAC main study.
