Piloting your instruments

Many of you are now developing questionnaires and interview schedules. It is important to test drive questionnaires and interview questions -- doing this can provide an insight into how effective your instrument is and can provide initial data. Piloting allows you to:

• test out how you will administer your questionnaire/interview
• ask participants for feedback so that you can identify ambigous or misleading questions
• find out how long it will take for participants to do the questionnare or take part in your interview
• identify and alter/remove unnecessary questions
• rework questions which lead to unexpected responses

Conducting a pilot is a key part of a solid research design. Basically, piloting can show up any potential difficulties before you proceed to the rest of your project and gives you the opportunity to 'tweak' your instruments to ensure a good fit with your research design and question.