Question about reimbursing participants doing electronic surveys?
Hi, I'm designing a set of web surveys for research purposes to assess mental health literacy. I will submit my protocol through IRB, and subjects will be protected and de-identified. The question I have is with respect to compensation. Participants will have a verify code, and I wanted to compensate them with an electronic gift card after completion of the surveys. My idea was to call the participant to confirm the verify code, and after verification forward them the gift card. I wanted to know if this protocol seemed suitable, or what protocols are there for compensating participants after completion of an online survey? If you have any insight into this issue, I would appreciate it. Thanks, Christian Reusche
I too am preparing an online survey that will provide compensation in the form of gift cards (you folks will be seeing it in the fall :) ). My proposal (reviewed and approved by my university;s REB) is to collect contact information on a separate screen after the respondent has completed and submitted the survey. The survey will be coded but the codes not matched to the names for the purposes of the draw. They will only be matched if respondents indicate that they want to take part in follow up interviews. This is not written in stone so if anyone has experience with this and has a better idea, I'd love to hear about it. Rhiannon Dr. Rhiannon Bury Assistant Professor Women's and Gender Studies Athabasca University rbury@athabascau.ca
Assuming your sample is larger than five, you'll face a lot of administrative overhead trying to contact each participant. Furthermore, such "contacts" are regulated by the IRB - you would need to write that into your protocol, and I have a feeling an IRB might punt (exception is if the gifts are over $200). I would do one of two things - either have the subjects enter the verification code at the end of the survey (and you maintain a spreadsheet/database linking the code to an identifier), or have the subjects enter their email address at the end of the survey. Either way, you'll need to write this into your IRB and have a protocol for decoupling the PII. The end goal should be protecting participant privacy, and minimizing administrative burden. On that tangent, I recently did a mini-analysis comparing iTunes and Amazon gift cards as survey incentives. Compared to iTunes, Amazon is much, much easier to manage. More here: http://fstutzman.com/2010/07/21/itunes-vs-amazon-as-survey-incentive/ On Aug 17, 2010, at 11:51 AM, Reusche, Christian Fernando wrote:
Hi,
I'm designing a set of web surveys for research purposes to assess mental health literacy. I will submit my protocol through IRB, and subjects will be protected and de-identified. The question I have is with respect to compensation. Participants will have a verify code, and I wanted to compensate them with an electronic gift card after completion of the surveys. My idea was to call the participant to confirm the verify code, and after verification forward them the gift card. I wanted to know if this protocol seemed suitable, or what protocols are there for compensating participants after completion of an online survey? If you have any insight into this issue, I would appreciate it.
Thanks, Christian Reusche _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Fred Stutzman Ph.D. Candidate and Teaching Fellow School of Information and Library Science, UNC-Chapel Hill fred@fredstutzman.com | (919) 260-8508 | http://fredstutzman.com/
Christian, I don't know the size of your sample but that sounds like a lot of work on your part to have to personally call every respondent. It also sounds a bit annoying and slightly invasive for the participants. I don't think those are show-stoppers, just things that make me raise my eyebrows, particularly because it requires you to collect respondents' phone numbers. If I were conducting this survey and that were the only reason I was collecting phone numbers, my IRB would probably push back. It's also worth noting that past research indicates that post-survey incentives are typically not effective in increasing response rates. It might be worth exploring other options. Kevin
Hi Kevin, The reason for calling particpants is to avoid fraud. How can we regulate people with multiple email addresses from completing multiple surveys. If we try and block IP addressess they can always use another public computer. My idea is to have a consent form prior to doing the survey that would use the particpants email and phone number instead of a signature as a consent to participate. The data of the survey is de-linked, goes into a separate database and the number and email go to another data base. The system will block a repeat email or phone number entered into the system. The contact data base will then be used to confirm the verify code via phone within 48-96hours. Afterwards, the particpant will be forwarded the gift card. As long as protected information is de-identified, this is ok. Participants in other clinical studies usually list their contact information in case the researcher needs to follow up. I don't think IRB would be deterred because the study is collecting an email and phone-number. Yes, I know this can be tedious,but this limits fraud. I know calling can be tedious,but this limits fraud. Christian ________________________________________ From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Kevin Guidry [krguidry@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 12:13 PM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-L] Question about reimbursing participants doing electronic surveys? Christian, I don't know the size of your sample but that sounds like a lot of work on your part to have to personally call every respondent. It also sounds a bit annoying and slightly invasive for the participants. I don't think those are show-stoppers, just things that make me raise my eyebrows, particularly because it requires you to collect respondents' phone numbers. If I were conducting this survey and that were the only reason I was collecting phone numbers, my IRB would probably push back. It's also worth noting that past research indicates that post-survey incentives are typically not effective in increasing response rates. It might be worth exploring other options. Kevin _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
How much fraud do you suspect will occur? It seems perfectly acceptable that we tolerate some level of fraud, e.g. 5%. I haven't looked, but there might be some literature on the topic (check POQ, Bob Groves' work for starters). I still believe the follow-up phone call is onerous. Check the literature on RDD completions if you want a glimpse at how difficult it is to get someone on the phone. Are you prepared to call each respondent 15-20 times, which is common practice on telephone surveys? On Aug 18, 2010, at 9:11 AM, Reusche, Christian Fernando wrote:
Hi Kevin,
The reason for calling particpants is to avoid fraud. How can we regulate people with multiple email addresses from completing multiple surveys. If we try and block IP addressess they can always use another public computer. My idea is to have a consent form prior to doing the survey that would use the particpants email and phone number instead of a signature as a consent to participate. The data of the survey is de-linked, goes into a separate database and the number and email go to another data base. The system will block a repeat email or phone number entered into the system. The contact data base will then be used to confirm the verify code via phone within 48-96hours. Afterwards, the particpant will be forwarded the gift card. As long as protected information is de-identified, this is ok. Participants in other clinical studies usually list their contact information in case the researcher needs to follow up. I don't think IRB would be deterred because the study is collecting an email and phone-number. Yes, I know this can be tedious,but this limits fraud. I know calling can be tedious,but this limits fraud.
Christian
________________________________________ From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Kevin Guidry [krguidry@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 12:13 PM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-L] Question about reimbursing participants doing electronic surveys?
Christian,
I don't know the size of your sample but that sounds like a lot of work on your part to have to personally call every respondent. It also sounds a bit annoying and slightly invasive for the participants. I don't think those are show-stoppers, just things that make me raise my eyebrows, particularly because it requires you to collect respondents' phone numbers. If I were conducting this survey and that were the only reason I was collecting phone numbers, my IRB would probably push back.
It's also worth noting that past research indicates that post-survey incentives are typically not effective in increasing response rates. It might be worth exploring other options.
Kevin _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/ _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Fred Stutzman Ph.D. Candidate and Teaching Fellow School of Information and Library Science, UNC-Chapel Hill fred@fredstutzman.com | (919) 260-8508 | http://fredstutzman.com/
participants (4)
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Fred Stutzman -
Kevin Guidry -
Reusche, Christian Fernando -
Rhiannon Bury