The joint and comparative effects of the use of monetary incentives and follow-up mailings were examined in a mail survey of suburban Washington, DC cable television subscribers. Four experimental groups received monetary incentives enclosed with the first mailing only ($0.25, $0.50, $1.00, or $2.00) and three follow-up mailings. These groups were compared with each other and against a control group that did not receive an incentive. The results indicated that the response rate from the first mailing increased significantly as the incentive amount increased from zero to $0.25, and from $0.25 to $1.00. Four mailings without an incentive produced a higher response rate than a single mailing with an incentive, but a combination of follow-up mailings and a $1.00 or $2.00 incentive produced a significantly higher response rate than an equivalent number of mailings without an incentive.There was some evidence of intertreatment response bias. Larger monetary incentives tended to produce: (1) a greater degree of effort expended in completing the questionnaires, as measured by the number of short answers and comments provided, and the number of words written, and (2) comments that were more favorable toward the survey sponsor.
JEANNINE JAMES is President of
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.