Pilot Surveys
A pilot survey is a small-scale trial run of a questionnaire or survey, carried out before the main data collection, used to check that the questions are clear, unambiguous and produce useful answers. It lets researchers spot and fix problems, such as confusing wording or missing response options, before spending time and money on the full survey.
Before you start
Make sure you're comfortable with these topics first:
Method
- Write a draft version of the full questionnaire or survey.
- Select a small sample of people, similar to those in the target population, to complete the draft survey.
- Check whether respondents understood each question the same way, and whether any questions were left blank, confusing, or led to biased answers.
- Check that closed questions have enough response options to cover everyone's likely answer, with no gaps and no overlaps.
- Amend or remove any questions that caused problems, based on the feedback from the pilot.
- Carry out the main, larger-scale survey using the improved, piloted questionnaire.
Worked example
A student is designing a questionnaire to find out how much time people spend exercising each week, before giving it to all 200 people in her survey. Explain why she should carry out a pilot survey first, and describe one thing she might check.
- State the purpose: a pilot survey tests the questionnaire on a small group before it is used on all 200 people.
- Give a reason it is useful: it avoids collecting 200 sets of unclear or biased data if a question turns out to be confusing, saving time and effort.
- Give an example of something to check: whether the tick-box time bands, such as '0-2 hours' and '2-4 hours', overlap or have gaps, since someone who exercises for exactly 2 hours would not know which box to tick.
- So the final answer is: yes, she should pilot the survey first, for example to check that the response bands for the exercise-hours question do not overlap.
Practice questions
Try each question, then tap to reveal the answer.
Exam-style questions
Written in the style of a GCSE Statistics exam paper, with a full mark scheme.
State what is meant by a pilot survey, and give one reason for carrying one out.
A researcher pilots a survey question, 'Do you exercise a lot?', with 15 people before the main survey of 300 people. (a) Identify a problem with this question. (b) Suggest an improved version of the question.
A council plans to survey all 4000 residents of a town about a new recycling scheme. Before doing so, they run a pilot survey on 25 residents. (a) State two things the council should check for during the pilot survey. (b) Explain one benefit of running the pilot survey before contacting all 4000 residents.
Free printable worksheet
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