Individual payments as a longer-term incentive in online panels

Does it pay to pay online panel members? A three-wave longitudinal experiment was conducted with an online panel to examine whether per person payments, paid through an online intermediary, influence response and retention rates. In the payment condition, participants were promised payment for participation at each wave, whereas control participants were not offered any payment. The promise of a payment had a negative effect on response in Wave 1, but a positive effect on response in Wave 2. Payment had no significant effect on retention. Completing a given wave was an indicator for responding to a subsequent invitation.

[1]  I. Stoop,et al.  The hunt for the last respondent : nonresponse in sample surveys , 2005 .

[2]  A. H. Church.  ESTIMATING THE EFFECT OF INCENTIVES ON MAIL SURVEY RESPONSE RATES: A META-ANALYSIS , 1993 .

[3]  Tracy L. Tuten,et al.  Prepaid and promised incentives in web surveys: an experiment , 2003 .

[4]  Robert M. Groves,et al.  Survey Errors and Survey Costs: Groves/Survey Errors , 2005 .

[5]  P. Lachenbruch.  Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences (2nd ed.) , 1989 .

[6]  Abhijit Biswas,et al.  The diagnostic role of signals in the context of perceived risks in online shopping: Do signals matter more on the Web? , 2004 .

[7]  E. Deci.  Effects of Externally Mediated Rewards on Intrinsic Motivation. , 1971 .

[8]  Jacques A. Hagenaars,et al.  Categorical Longitudinal Data: Log-Linear Panel, Trend, and Cohort Analysis , 1990 .

[9]  R. Hubbard,et al.  PROMISED CONTRIBUTIONS TO CHARITY AND MAIL SURVEY RESPONSES REPLICATION WITH EXTENSION , 1988 .

[10]  H. Cooper,et al.  A Quantitative Review of Research Design Effects on Response Rates to Questionnaires , 1983 .

[11]  P. Chisnall.  Mail and Internet Surveys: The Tailored Design Method , 2007, Journal of Advertising Research.

[12]  Jeroen K. Vermunt,et al.  'EM: A general program for the analysis of categorical data 1 , 1997 .

[13]  R. Fay.  Causal Models for Patterns of Nonresponse , 1986 .

[14]  Jeroen K. Vermunt,et al.  Log-Linear Models for Event Histories , 1997 .

[15]  Barbara A. Ba,et al.  THE QUALITY OF SURVEY DATA , 2002 .

[16]  Jacob Cohen.  Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences , 1969, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Research Design.

[17]  D. Leeuw,et al.  Data Quality in Mail, Telephone and Face to Face Surveys. , 1992 .

[18]  Anja S. Göritz,et al.  Contingent versus unconditional incentives in WWW-studies , 2005, Advances in Methodology and Statistics.

[19]  J. Hoek,et al.  THE BEHAVIOR OF RESPONDENTS, NONRESPONDENTS, AND REFUSERS ACROSS MAIL SURVEYS , 1992 .

[20]  J. Kampen.  The Impact of Survey Methodology and Context on Central Tendency, Nonresponse and Associations of Subjective Indicators of Government Performance , 2007 .

[21]  Anja S. Göritz,et al.  Lotteries as Incentives in Longitudinal Web Studies , 2007 .

[22]  D. Dillman.  Mail and telephone surveys : the total design method , 1979 .

[23]  Anja S. Göritz,et al.  Cash Lotteries as Incentives in Online Panels , 2006 .

[24]  M. Clarke,et al.  Increasing response rates to postal questionnaires: systematic review , 2002, BMJ : British Medical Journal.

[25]  Anja S. Göritz,et al.  The Long-Term Effect of Material Incentives on Participation in Online Panels , 2008 .

[26]  D. Hill,et al.  Reducing Panel Attrition: A Search for Effective Policy Instruments , 2001 .

[27]  Bernad Batinic,et al.  Determinanten der Rücklaufquote in Online-Panels , 2005, Z. für Medienpsychologie.

[28]  M. Couper.  A REVIEW OF ISSUES AND APPROACHES , 2000 .

[29]  D. Dillman.  Mail and internet surveys: The tailored design method, 2nd ed. , 2007 .

[30]  Eric R. Ziegel,et al.  Survey Errors and Survey Costs , 1990 .

[31]  Anja S. Göritz,et al.  Incentives in Web Studies: Methodological Issues and a Review , 2006 .

[32]  A. Raftery.  Bayesian Model Selection in Social Research , 1995 .

[33]  Robert M. Groves,et al.  The Impact of Nonresponse Rates on Nonresponse Bias A Meta-Analysis , 2008 .

[34]  Anja S. Göritz,et al.  Using Online Panels in Psychological Research , 2009 .