Monetary Incentives and Mail Questionnaire Response Rates

Abstract

Abstract Abstract An experiment involving 400 randomly selected professionals from the midwestern United States indicated that the response rate to a mail questionnaire was significantly increased by the use of an enclosed one dollar incentive. Promised incentives of two dollars and entry into a lottery with awards of fifty dollars, thirty dollars, and twenty dollars in return for a completed questionnaire did not significantly change the response rate to the mail questionnaire relative to the no incentive (control) group response rate. The two dollar promised incentive group had a higher response rate than the lottery-type promised incentive group with prizes of fifty, thirty, and twenty dollars.