The CUSC-CCREU Board noticed a decreasing trend in overall CUSC-CCREU survey response rates.
Offering incentives (prizes) to potential survey respondents has been shown to increase response rates, but by how much? CUSC-CCREU is asking institutions to participate in a national incentives experiment to support or reject the hypothesis that “offering large national incentives improves survey response rates”. There is no cost to participate in the experiment.
Institutions may opt-in to the experiment. PRA will randomly assign 50% of their sample to the experiment. Students in the experiment will have the following sentence added to their institution’s invitation and reminder emails: “By completing the questionnaire, you will also automatically be entered into a draw for one of two CUSC national prizes of $600 each.“ (see Invitation and reminder emails template). For students who are not in the experiment, their invitation and reminders emails will be as submitted by your institution.
Notes
1) Students who are in the experiment and complete the 2025 survey (see Completed survey) at institutions that offer their own incentives will be eligible to win incentives offered by both their institution and the CUSC national incentives.
2) Students who are in the experiment, and complete the 2025 survey, and are at an Alberta institution may be eligible to win incentives from their institution, the Alberta provincial incentives, and the CUSC national incentives.
3) PRA will administer the national incentives by drawing from students who completed the survey, notifying the winners, and sending them an e-transfer for $600.
4) CUSC-CCREU recommends that you conduct a research ethics review to determine if this experiment is suitable for your institution, especially considering Quebec gaming laws. This review may determine that your students’ participation is not permitted.
The master data files will contain responses from all students at member universities who completed the survey (see Completed survey) with a field indicating if the respondent was in the national incentives experiment. Institution data files will contain responses from all of their students with a field indicating if the respondent was in the national incentives experiment, and a field indicating which respondents were included in the master data file.
Results of the experiment (aggregate comparisons of within-institution response rates and overall response rates) will be reported by PRA in August 2025. If national incentives are found to produce a substantially higher response rate, the CUSC-CCREU Board will consider adding them to future surveys.
While the CUSC‐CCREU Board encourages institutions to opt-in, participation in the experiment is voluntary. Please indicate on the Registration form if your institution is participating.