Do previous survey experience and participating due to an incentive affect response quality? Evidence from the CRONOS panel

Abstract

As ever more surveys are conducted, recruited respondents are more likely to already have previous survey experience. Furthermore, it has become more difficult to convince individuals to participate in surveys, and thus, incentives are increasingly used. Both previous survey experience and participation in surveys due to incentives have been discussed in terms of their links with response quality. This study aims to assess whether previous web survey experience and survey participation due to incentives are linked with three indicators of response quality: item non-response, primacy effect and non-differentiation. Analysing data of the probability-based CROss-National Online Survey panel covering Estonia, Slovenia and Great Britain, we found that previous web survey experience is not associated with item non-response and the occurrence of a primacy effect but is associated with non-differentiation. Participating due to the incentive is not associated with any of the three response quality indicators assessed. Hence, overall, we find little evidence that response quality is linked with either previous web survey experience or participating due to the incentive.