Does a sample size of three participants suffice for a pilot study in qualitative research?
It would ideally depend on your study sample size. However, I think 3 would be fine because qualitative research studies generally have a smaller sample size anyway. Hence the purpose of the pilot is primarily to refine your instrument and identify data collection gaps (if any) once you have conducted them.
It depends on what the purpose of your pilot study was. If it was to refine your interview questions and it has severed that goal, then you are fine.
FYI many if not most qualitative studies do not do any pilot interviews at all.
From my experience, yes, it was sufficient. I advise you to ask yourself: What did I get out of them? Did they provide what I needed? Did the answers convince me that the current format of the questions will achieve the aim of the study? Even if they left YOU with some doubt, questioning the validity of YOUR questions can be a valuable takeaway from a pilot study. However, this number isn’t valid if you plan to estimate the sample size based on it.
I would go with data saturation: after three interviews, do you think that your questions were sufficiently answered and that the 3 people raised the same points? Or were very different points raised and a new person could possibly give very different information. See also: Article What is adequate sample size? Operationalising data saturati...
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