In RDA’s evaluation work, we are careful to ensure we honor participants’ time, effort, and intellectual property through compensation, usually in the form of gift cards. The goal is for compensation to be responsive to participants and their day-to-day lives.  Gift cards typically range from $10 to $25 and make up less than 2% of project budgets.

RDA makes the decision to use compensation with the full understanding of the research regarding incentivizing participation.

Research on incentivizing treatment participation can provide context for understanding how compensation may affect evaluations. For example, low engagement in treatment activities, such as appointment attendance, is particularly a problem for individuals pursuing behavioral health treatment (Lee et al., 2018). Because evaluation activities are voluntary and not a component of treatment, clients may feel even less motivated to participate.

There are ethical concerns about providing financial incentives for evaluation engagement, such as whether the practice is coercive, undermines client autonomy, or changes the client-provider relationship.

RDA follows suggested guidelines, including voluntary participation, proportional compensation amounts that aren’t coercive, and equitable distribution across participants (Khazanova et al., 2022). The level of risk to participants should always be carefully considered, and a determination of whether an Institutional Review Board (IRB) should be used is recommended.

When determining appropriate incentives, consider the amount of time participants spend on evaluation activities and travel costs.

To learn more, check out Eval Academy’s blog on Incentives for Participation in Evaluation! https://lnkd.in/gjf-PXtu

#EvaluationResearch #ProgramEvaluation #ResearchMethods #DataCollection #Incentives #EvaluationIncentives #IncentivizingResearch