Page 71 - A Step-By-Step Guide to Questionnaire Validation Research

2.4 Pilot studies

The first-step towards conducting a primary

research study is usually to conduct an initial pilot study,

which is a small-scale preliminary study. This aims to

evaluate feasibility of the study in answering the study

objectives before deciding to conduct the actual full-scale

study. For a questionnaire validation study, a researcher

will conduct a pilot study to assess the preliminary

feasibility of a questionnaire for determining whether (or

not) it has been designed to collect all relevant information

that are originally intended to be collected by the

researchers (Hulley, 2007).

Unlike face validity, a pilot study for a questionnaire

is considered as one type of quantitative study which

involves a quantitative analysis of the feedback elicited by

the respondents. This explains why a pilot study for a

questionnaire will usually require a larger sample of at