Pilot Studies

• What is a pilot study?

  A small-scale version of an investigation that takes place before the real investigation is conducted. The aim is to check that procedures, materials, measuring scales, etc., work. The aim is also to allow the researcher to make changes or modifications if necessary.
• What are the aims of piloting?

  • involves a handful of participants, rather than the total number to check the investigation runs smoothly
  • when using self-report methods, e.g. questionnaires or interviews, it's helpful to try out questions in advance and remove/reword those that are ambiguous or confusing
  • in observational studies, a pilot study provides a way of checking coding systems before the real investigation is undertaken - way of training observers
  • allows the researcher to identify any potential issues and to modify the design or procedure, saving time and money in the long run
• What is a single-blind procedure?

  • where participants are unaware of the aim of the research at the beginning of a study ( while the researcher is aware)
  • participants may also be unaware of other details e.g. which condition of the experiment they're in
  • any information that might create expectations is not revealed until the end of the study to control for the confounding effects of demand characteristics

  
• What is a double-blind procedure?

  • where neither the participants nor the researcher who conducts the study is aware of the aims of the investigation (often a third party conducts the investigation without knowing its main purpose)
  • often an important feature of drug trials - treatment may be administered to participants by someone who is independent of the investigation and who doesn't know which are real and which are placebos --> if they don't know what each participant is receiving then expectations cannot influence participant behaviour

  
• Why is it important to have control groups as well as experimental groups?

  • control is used in many experimental studies for the purpose of comparison
  • if the change in behaviour of the experimental group is significantly greater than that of the control group, then the researcher can conlude that the cause of this effect was the independent variable (assuming all other possible confounding variables have remained constant)
  • having 2 groups in an experiment is an independent groups design, but we can also have control conditions in a repeated measures design; each participant takes part twice