Daily Compensation Can Improve College Students’ Participation and Retention Rates in Daily Report Studies

Abstract

In longitudinal daily report research, it is challenging to maintain participation with college student samples due to the time and mental energy required. Small monetary incentives can assuage this; thus, the goal of this study was to determine whether incentive distribution method—via (1) the total compensation at the end of the study period, (2) daily compensation that increases with subsequent surveys, or (3) the same steady compensation each day—leads to different completion rates across five consecutive daily surveys. Both steady and increasing compensation groups were more likely to opt-in to the study, while the steady compensation group was more likely to complete the Day 1 survey. Over 5 days, the steady group had a sharper decrease in participation but had a rebound in participation toward the end of the study. Recommendations and rationale for using a daily steady compensation approach with daily report methodology with emerging adults are discussed.