The offering of incentives is entirely optional; ultimately strong promotion of the survey, a belief by students that survey responses will be acted upon by the department, and departmental support for completion of the survey will yield the highest response rates.

Additionally, some departments have achieved good engagement by holding an event or booking a space, where students can complete the survey there and then. Running this session at lunchtime or in the evening and offering food (e.g. pizza) and drinks can help to boost engagement. This should be left in the room for all eligible students to enjoy whether they complete the survey at that time or not.

Some other ideas are...

Charitable donations

An NSS incentive idea is a charitable donation, going to a Warwick charity chosen by the department, on an increasing scale based on percentage of responses. This model could also work for PTES. An example of how scheme this scheme could work is: For the first 50% of the cohort who complete the survey, a £1.50 donation per head will be made; for 50-70%, a £2 donation; and for 70% upwards, a £2.50 donation.

Prize draw incentive

Departments can choose to offer a prize draw, which may or may not be drawn upon a certain threshold response being reached.

Departments should consult with students as to what prize scheme might be appealing to finalists. Departments can choose to keep the total fund used for prizes at a fixed figure or can increase the total prize fund as specific response rate milestones are reached. For example, once a department has met 50% response rate, the prize fund is £50. This will increase to £100 (perhaps two prizes) when the response rate reaches 75%.

It is important to note that the winners of prize draws must be drawn from all eligible students as departments will not know who has completed the survey.

If you have any ideas or something that has worked before and want to share please let us know.