Using a Cash Incentive to Heighten Mail Survey Response
Abstract:
Obtaining a high response rate is a recurrent problem facing researchers conducting mail surveys. The use of a cash incentive has been one method of attempting to induce cooperation from respondents. This paper describes an experiment in which sampled respondents were randomly assigned to incentive and non-incentive groups, in order to determine (1) whether a pre-mailed $1.00 incentive produces a significant increase in the rate of survey response and, if so, (2) whether the approach is cost effective.
