The Effectiveness of Incentives on Completion Rates, Data Quality, and Nonresponse Bias in a Probability-based Internet Panel Survey

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Field methods
• Personal Author:
  Stanley, Marshica ; Roycroft, Jessica ; Amaya, Ashley ; Dever, Jill A. ; Srivastav, Anup
• Description:
  Previous research has shown that increasing the size of incentives can increase response rates for probability-based, cross-sectional surveys. However, the effects of incentives on web panels have not been extensively studied. We sought to answer the question: What is the effect of larger, postpaid incentives on (1) response, (2) data quality, and (3) nonresponse bias for individuals in a web panel? We analyzed data from the 2015 and 2016 National Internet Flu Survey, a survey that uses the GfK KnowledgePanel| as its sampling frame. We compare panel members who received a postpaid, standard 1,000-point (the equivalent of US$1) incentive in 2015 to panelists who received a larger, 5,000-point (the equivalent of US$5) incentive in 2016. We found that larger incentives were associated with increased interview completion rates with minimal impact on data quality or bias.
• Source:
  Field methods. 32(2):159-179
• Pubmed ID:
  35923434
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC9345576
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  CC999999/ImCDC/Intramural CDC HHSUnited States/
• Volume:
  32
• Issue:
  2
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:5ec05ede73a5d11af5e5deeb3a1c52bd544c93b5cb3b12c3d8145e181dee52ce265db98920fcee8e76a2ac13989d799b4fdf58eb109cbf1fc1a1217b4ded9131
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/119979/cdc_119979_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 474.91 KB ]