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The effectiveness of incentives on completion rates, data quality, and nonresponse bias in a probability-based internet panel survey
Stanley, M., Roycroft, J., Amaya, A., Dever, J. A., & Srivastav, A. (2020). The effectiveness of incentives on completion rates, data quality, and nonresponse bias in a probability-based internet panel survey. Field Methods, 32(2), 159-179. Article 1525822X20901802. https://doi.org/10.1177/1525822x20901802
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 (R) 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.
