Abstract

To improve the economic and environmental sustainability of agriculture, information is needed on how to target research, teaching, and outreach programs. However, conducting survey research in general, and with agricultural producers specifically, is increasingly challenging given issues such as declining response rates and limited resources. While studies examining the best practices for promoting higher response rates exist, few focus explicitly on agricultural producers. In three separate surveys conducted with agricultural producers in South Dakota in 2018 and 2019, we included experiments testing how token pre-incentives, a research partnership, and response mode options impacted response rates. We also examined how sample source and email augmentations influence survey responses. The study findings indicate that providing pre-incentives and multiple simultaneous response options can increase response rates with agricultural producers. On the other hand, email augmentation to mail surveys, sample source, and identification of select institutional research partnerships appear to have minimal effects.

摘要

为了提高农业的经济和环境可持续性，需要有关如何针对研究，教学和推广计划的信息。但是，鉴于诸如答复率下降和资源有限之类的问题，一般而言，尤其是针对农业生产者进行调查研究正变得越来越具有挑战性。虽然已有研究研究了用于提高响应率的最佳实践的研究，但很少有研究明确地关注农业生产者。在2018年和2019年与南达科他州的农业生产者进行的三项独立调查中，我们包括了试验代币预激励措施，研究合作伙伴关系以及响应方式选项如何影响响​​应率的实验。我们还检查了样本源和电子邮件扩充如何影响调查响应。研究结果表明，提供激励措施和多种同时应对措施可以提高对农业生产者的响应率。另一方面，将电子邮件扩充到邮件调查，样本来源以及识别选定的机构研究合作伙伴关系方面似乎影响最小。