The importance of pilot work to ensure questions have meaning to participants: Developing questions about PREP

Abstract

Small-scale qualitative work has long been recommended as a sound basis for developing structured questionnaires (Hoinville et al., 1978; Morton-Williams, 1985). The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of qualitative interviewing to determine when questions become relevant to participants. During a longitudinal study of nurses' careers, pilot work was undertaken at each phase of data collection in order to test the efficiency and effectiveness of the data collection tool. Using questions about PREP, the paper describes how a three-stage process of unstructured interviews and postal pilots was used to develop questions which had meaning to nurses at three time points in their careers, thereby helping to ensure that the data produced were valid.