Justification for change

JUSTIFICATION FOR CHANGE

WEST COAST SALTWATER FISHING SURVEY

OMB CONTROL NUMBER: 0648-0750

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is requesting a change to the above-referenced data collection.

Specifically, we are seeking to test the efficacy of a nominal incentive on response rates. The most recent data collections from part of this population (specifically Washington and Oregon) achieved only modest telephone contact response rates. Telephone contacts were to be a major component of the planned administration: to be used to determine whether a sampled license-holder would qualify for the full survey by being a saltwater angler. To explore an efficient way to gather the same information in place of the telephone contact, we would administer a mail letter containing a nominal incentive ($2 or $5), also including a baseline of no incentive to determine the effect of the incentive. Equal sample size would be allocated to each of the three incentive amounts: $0, $2, and $5.

Currently we are seeking to test this incentive using only the small sample designated for the pre-test. This will allow us to efficiently test whether response rates are significantly higher using a nominal incentive. We expect that the increased expense of the incentive will be canceled out by the increase in response rate, with the net result being a larger set of completed surveys for the original budget amount. Several studies from the literature report increased response rates using small incentives, and this approach has been used on recent federal surveys (e.g., the most recent mailings of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation included a $2 bill for this same purpose).

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