It’s important to test your survey questionnaire before using it to collect data. Pretesting and piloting can help you identify questions that don’t make sense to participants, or problems with the questionnaire that might lead to biased answers. This guide explains how to conduct basic pretesting and piloting for a survey. This advice is for: ? Basic quantitative surveys such as feedback forms, needs assessments, simple baseline and endline surveys, etc. This advice is NOT for: ? Complex baseline and endline surveys or research studies. ? Developing new measurement instruments for use in research (e.g. psychological instruments for measuring concepts such as confidence, motivation, etc.). ? Qualitative focus groups or interviews.
Any testing is better than no testing.