What I read form various literatures that development of tools happen in 3 stages 1) planning & deciding objectives 2) drafting pre tryout - apply on small small ~20 here one looks for feedback regarding quality of items, length of tool, any other ambiguity etc then do revision and develop next version for 3) try out version- here tool or tools are applied together as whole on part of sample say 80-100 (no definite rule found) then do standardization by- item analysis, validation and reliability.

My question is - if I take pre try out sample around 65-70 and since I am using multiple tools (inventories) and want to reduce the number of poor items from each tool before tryout can I do statistical item analysis and factor analysis in pre try out phase ??? And then draft the try out tool to administer on larger sample for final validation and reliability ???????