Piloting

A golden rule for questionnaires and, indeed all other research instruments, is always to conduct a trial run or pilot before embarking on the investigation proper. Having designed the questionnaire, try it out on people who are similar to your ‘target’ population in important details (age, sex, ethnic mix). If that is not possible, ask a colleague to read it through. Piloting the questionnaire in this way will almost invariably bring to light problems with instructions, layout or wording that you have not seen at the design stage.