Overview
This guidance covers the use of incentives in user research in DfE only. Rules and processes for using incentives in other DfE research professions are available on the intranet.
You can use incentives in DfE user research.
Incentives are payments, gifts or rewards offered to user research participants to:
- increase participation rates or reduce drop-out rates
- ensure a representative sample, including access to hard-to-reach groups.
They are intended as a 'thank you' for participants, or to compensate them for their time when taking part in user research.
Incentives can be monetary (e.g. vouchers) or non-monetary (e.g. small gifts). There are different rules for using monetary and non-monetary incentives.
To use monetary incentives, you will need budget approval in your team and you must only buy them from our approved suppliers, via the research operations team.