Link between Response‐inducing Strategies and Uninformed Response

Examines the relationship between selected strategies designed to enhance the response rate to a survey and uninformed response, or the tendency of respondents to deliberately “guess at” or otherwise answer survey questions when they lack sufficient knowledge or experience to provide an informed response. Uninformed response is one of several potential sources of response error, or error that results from inaccurate responses to survey questions, that trouble marketing researchers and others involved in survey research. Drawing on an often expressed concern that techniques designed to increase the overall response rate to a survey might negatively affect response quality in general (and uninformed response in particular), tests the effect of three response‐inducing techniques (monetary incentives, survey sponsorship, and type of appeal) on uninformed response in one particular survey. The findings suggest that monetary inducement and,depending on other characteristics of the survey design, sponsorship and type of appeal as well, do affect the level of uninformed response.