This compares with response rates of 35 and 55 per cent for the similar 1951 and 1968 National Food Surveys where no payments were offered. There is also evidence from the commercial world to suggest that a nominal payment or free gift or sample is a successful incentive to participants when complex information is required. Neverthless, despite the success of payment schemes in surveys, there has tended to be a move away from the payment of respondents where research is particularly concerned with explaining social phenomena, because payments are believed to increase the possibility of contamination or bias. Power and paying for participation Payments are rarely considered in designing qualitative research. This may be because the researched are often those lacking the power to insist on being compensated for their time, as experts or consultants on their own values, knowledge, skills and experiences.
Payment can be one way of recognising and beginning to equalise such power relations.
It is not invariably the case that respondents deserve to be paid. Not only would it be impossible to recompense a managing director of a multi-national company at a level which would not seem derisory, it would be unnecessary to attempt to redress a power imbalance in favour of such a respondent. Because of the variations in the relative power of the researched and the researcher, there cannot be a prescription for the amount of payment which should be offered to participants and the issue of payment will need to be resolved on a case by case basis. Researchers should consider the possibility of building the cost of payments into research bids. A case study of paying respondents What follows is a brief discussion of an unpublished study carried out in Jamaica over a six week period.