I am conducting pilot tests with the three groups that I am going to conduct a focus group with later (adolescents, parents and coaches).
In addition to refining the questions and identifying possible errors and improvements prior to the focus groups, can I use the extracted results for later inclusion in the TA?
Typically, no. The pilot test is to develop and refine your interview protocol and techniques. A different sample is almost always used. Ethical approval is different as well. A pilot done right means the study's participants will be under different conditions than the pilot.
If you have proper ethical approval, then certainly you can use your pilot data. Of course, you will have to take into account any differences between your pilot study and your main study, but thematic analysis does not require homogeneity with regard to either the questions asked or the samples interviewed.
Dear Alfredo,
A pilot study and a main study have different reason for being, different purpose. I would not mix or integrate the pilot study findings with the main study findings that way you suggest. From the methodological viewpoint, there is a wide reason to perform a pilot study. The pilot study helps you to make technical, methodological and financial decisions to "strengthen" your main study, both in substance and form. However, even if there are some fundamental improvements for your design, this does not mean that this aspect can be included in the main study.
In my opinion, the analysis would be flawed if I included findings from the pilot study in the main study.
Mayira Sojo-Milano If the pilot data corresponded 100% with the latter data, would you reject it on the basis that is was done for a different reason? What about a 90% correspondence or 75%
I believe the key point is whether the procedures used in the pilot produced comparable data, not the underlying motivations.
Pilot data most certainly can be used but depends on the conception of pilot. Evaluative pilots are unheard of being in the final results, whether dissertations or peer reviewed articles. With that being said, pilots are not only mostly haphazardly done and lacking well defined methods, they often are not reported for how conducted or results. Still, if a pilot is a trial run with the same sample and ethically approved with little meaningful change, then anything is possible. Probable is a different story. Though I could find a 1000 examples for pilot exclusion to 1 inclusion (that's really a gross understatement), everything goes back to one question: purpose and aims. I'm certainly not opposed!
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