Impact of Cash Incentives on Response Rate and Quality in a Longitudinal Survey

• In Event: Methodological Issues in Survey Research

Abstract

The Beginning Teacher Longitudinal Study, sponsored by NCES, surveys about 2,000 public school teachers annually to examine the changes in their career paths. In order to boost response rates, different cash incentive amounts were provided prior to the third data collection to evaluate their impact on survey responses. In this study, log and processing data were used to examine the number and the quality of responses collected. It is found that $20 cash incentives were more effective than $10 incentives in boosting the final response rate and early response rate before the telephone follow-up operation. Survey participants’ status in the previous wave also had a significant impact on both early and final response rates, survey item completion and editing rates.

Author

• Yan Wang, American Institutes for Research