THE EFFECT OF MONETARY INCENTIVES AND FOLLOW-UP MAILINGS ON THE RESPONSE RATE AND RESPONSE QUALITY IN MAIL SURVEYS |
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| Authors: | JAMES, JEANNINE M. BOLSTEIN, RICHARD |
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| Affiliation: | JEANNINE JAMES is President of American Research Company, Inc., Great Falls, Virginia, RICHARD BOLSTEIN is Associate Professor, Center for Computational Statistics, Department of Operations Research and Applied Statistics, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. This study was conducted as a doctoral dissertation in Industrial-Organizational Psychology at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, by Jeannine James, who wishes to thank Louis Buffardi, Director of the Industrial-Organizational Psychology Doctoral Program, and Theodore Gessner, Associate Professor of Psychology for their help respectively as chairman, and advisor on the dissertation committee. The authors also wish to thank Don Mathison, Vice President, Marketing and Programming, Media General Cable Company for providing the survey vehicle, and the Dean of the Graduate School, George Mason University, for providing a grant for the monetary incentives. |
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| Abstract: | The joint and comparative effects of the use of monetary incentivesand follow-up mailings were examined in a mail survey of suburbanWashington, DC cable television subscribers. Four experimentalgroups received monetary incentives enclosed with the firstmailing only ($0.25, $0.50, $1.00, or $2.00) and three follow-upmailings. These groups were compared with each other and againsta control group that did not receive an incentive. The resultsindicated that the response rate from the first mailing increasedsignificantly as the incentive amount increased from zero to$0.25, and from $0.25 to $1.00. Four mailings without an incentiveproduced a higher response rate than a single mailing with anincentive, but a combination of follow-up mailings and a $1.00or $2.00 incentive produced a significantly higher responserate than an equivalent number of mailings without an incentive. There was some evidence of intertreatment response bias. Largermonetary incentives tended to produce: (1) a greater degreeof effort expended in completing the questionnaires, as measuredby the number of short answers and comments provided, and thenumber of words written, and (2) comments that were more favorabletoward the survey sponsor. |
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