Research Tips

Increasing Response Rates

Is it very important to you that a high proportion of the people that you ask to participate in your research project agree to do so? If so, extensive evidence suggests that the best way to increase your response rate is by using multiple contacts (call backs for telephone interviews, additional mailings for mail surveys, etc.). [Reference] Incentives also help improve response rates, but surprisingly, including a token incentive with the request to participate has a bigger effect than promising a larger incentive to those who actually do .

It’s important to recognize that using multiple contacts and providing token incentives to everyone asked to participate will significantly increase the cost of a project, so this needs to be balanced against the desire for an increased response rate to determine whether these measures should be used as part of a particular project.