Does a short-term deadline extension affect participation rates of an online survey? Experimental evidence from an online panel

In times of decreasing response rates and survey participation, many ‘best-practices’ have been developed for increasing survey recruitment. However, most of these have never been adequately and experimentally scrutinized for their efficacy. Therefore, in this research note, we draw on probability-based data of an online panel and experimentally examine whether it is possible to increase survey participation behavior by communicating a deadline extension. Overall, our results show that it is possible to influence participation behavior by deadline communication. While overall response speed was significantly faster when a deadline
extension was communicated, the overall response rate was slightly lower, compared to scenarios in which no deadline extension was communicated. Thus, we refrain from recommending a deadline extension unless there are specific reasons to do so.