Prepaid Monetary Incentives and Data Quality in Face-to-Face Interviews

Abstract

Downloaded from4. The household reference person is usually an owner or renter of the household. 5. One wave of SIPP data contains four records for each person. The first record for each person represents the first reference month of data, the second record represents the second reference month for each person, etc. For the analyses contained within this article, only data from the first reference month are used to construct the indexes. at

Can Incentive Effects in Web Surveys Be Generalized to Non-Western Countries? Conditional and Unconditional Cash Incentives in a Web Survey of Ghanaian University Students

“…Oftenused indicators of response quality are (the absence of) item nonresponse or the length of answers in open-ended questions (Singer & Ye, 2013). Various studies report that the use of incentives does not affect item nonresponse (e.g., Curtin et al, 2007;Davern et al, 2003;Göritz, 2004;Petrolia & Bhattacharjee, 2009;Teisl, Roe, & Vayda, 2005), while others find that incentives motivate respondents to complete all questions (Bosnjak & Tuten, 2003;James & Bolstein, 1990;Medway, 2012;Singer, van Hoewyk, & Maher, 2000). In any case, the available research does not support the argument that giving out incentives harms response quality.…”

“…Some scholars have expressed the concern that incentives might have detrimental effects on response quality because they persuade sample units who would otherwise have refused to respond. Assuming that incentives affect the decision to participate but not the respondents' motivation, these respondents lack internal motivation and might therefore not fill out the survey carefully, which leads to incomplete data of low quality (Davern et al, 2003;Deutskens, De Ruyter, Wetzels, & Oosterveld, 2004;Göritz, 2006b). Hansen (1980, p. 78) uses self-perception theory to explain such quality-reducing effect of incentives: External motivators (such as incentives) impede respondents from perceiving themselves as cooperative persons, which results in less effort during the survey.…”

“…If, however, incentives activated a norm of reciprocity, their effectiveness would not be confined to the cooperation decision but would instead extend across the whole survey. In this case, incentives would stimulate respondents to provide more complete and adequate information and improve response quality (Davern et al, 2003).…”

“…In a nutshell, available research convincingly shows that (1) incentives increase response rates, irrespective of the survey mode used, (2) unconditional (prepaid) incentives are more effective than conditional (promised) incentives, (3) monetary incentives are more effective than vouchers and in-kind incentives, and (4) the higher value of an incentive, the stronger is the effect it produces, albeit marginal returns diminish (Singer & Ye, 2013). More recently, researchers have also started enquiring the effect of incentives on indicators of response quality, notably on item nonresponse (Curtin, Singer, & Presser, 2007;Davern, Rockwood, Sherrod, & Campbell, 2003;Medway, 2012).…”

The Influence of an Up-Front Experiment on Respondents’ Recording Behaviour in Payment Diaries: Evidence from Germany

“…However, we do not consider these measures here as 951 out of the 958 participants who rolled the die returned a completed diary. Instead, we follow the literature cited above in Section 2 (see, for example, Davern et al 2003;Shettle and Mooney 1999) and look, among other things, at measures related to item nonresponse. Item nonresponse can come in the form of a missing answer for an individual transaction or a missing transaction.…”