Pretesting or it is called Piloting, used to assess the clarity of the questionnaire, suitablity to the participants. The researcher can assess the needed time, the possible obstacle that could arise....etc. Therefore, it is recommended to do pretesting

To check if the selected sample is a representative one. Also, to ensure that some questions can be used to examine the participant seriouseness while filling the questionnaire.

Dear Risselle Edullantes,

You conduct a pre-test survey first because you need validate your sample. If your team are the authors must applicate that test to a control group. After that, if the test done well you must applicate the test to the groups of your sample. If your team use a validated test ( who was applicated to several samples by another authors, so a validated test) you don`t need do that and can conduct the test directly without a pre test.

I hope was useful for you.

Kind regards.

Pretesting or it is called Piloting, used to assess the clarity of the questionnaire, suitablity to the participants. The researcher can assess the needed time, the possible obstacle that could arise....etc. Therefore, it is recommended to do pretesting

Pretesting  could be a valid approach,  and it's the same thing as a pilot study.

It enables you to affirm the validity of your sample participants as well as that of the questions of your quedtionnaire. You will want to be sure if these questions provide insights to the event or phinomenon you are trying to study.

Importantly, it enables you to reconstruct some of the wordings of your questions because you are able to notice the need only in a pilot study and have an opportunity to correct them before the research itself.

I hope this helps.

The extent to which you need to do pre-testing depends on whether you have developed new questions, or are using existing questions in ways that have not been done before (e.g., with a new population that differs substantially from the source where the questions were previously used). If your measures and procedures are relatively routine, then there is less need for pretesting.

Strictly speaking, you do not have to pretest. But if you do not, you expose yourself to potential problems, such as lack of clarity in the items, which threaten the validity and reliability of your study. 

As a side note to some of the previous comments, which have been well-considered and helpful, you might still choose to pretest instruments that have been used previously, even if items have not been changed. Why? Because some variance in the sample/population might affect the way that people interpret the items, and thus how they respond. Anyone who has done confirmatory factor analysis of complicated models has probably discovered that what "works" for one sample hardly ever works for other samples. I have used instruments that had previously been established as valid and reliable but just don't work very well in particular contexts.

Research is hard. Researching people is especially hard.  :-)  

I am using the terms pre-test and pilot test as equivalent. That said, if you don't pre-test, you really don't know whether the questions you are asking are being interpreted the same as respondents. The issue is not simply limited to question wording either; it includes scale wording, instructions, question sequence, appropriateness and meaning of sections, etc. When I was editing a journal, I would never publish any survey study that did not provide evidence of the instrument's reliability. And, of course, reliability is a necessary condition for validity.

(Getting off my soap box:)

Sufficient answers are already provided by scholars. I would like to add that sometimes pre-testing is needed more than once for the same research project. Particularly in cases when you have found some language or clarity issues that respondents might have grappled with. After corrections, you might have to pre-test again to see if the problem persists or not. Hope it helps.

Thank you so much everyone

Good question and informative answers thank you all!

Hi

It is an essential step of surveys in all social sciences and significant measures for the accuracy. Please refer to

Z. A. Al-Hemyari and A. M. Al-Sarmi (2016). Validity and Reliability of Students and Academic Staff’s Surveys to Improve Higher Education. Educational Alternatives, Journal of International Scientific Publications, Vol.14, pp. 242-263.

.Instrument Reliability and Validity:

Introductory Concepts and Measures

Amanda Jane Fairchild

James Madison University

Regards,

Yes it‘s an essentiañ step

The following papers should also be helpful in enhancing understanding/clarification.

• Bolarinwa, O. A. (2015) Principles and methods of validity and reliability testing of questionnaires used in social and health science researches, Nigerian Postgraduate Medical Journal, 22, 4, pp. 195-.
• Collins, D. (2003) Pretesting survey instruments: an overview of cognitive methods, Quality of life research, 12, 3, pp. 229-238.
• Del Greco, L. and Walop, W. (1987) Questionnaire development: 5. The pretest, Canadian Medical Association Journal, 136, 10, pp. 1025-1026.
• Presser, S., Couper, M. P., Lessler, J. T., Martin, E., Martin, J., Rothgeb, J. M. and Singer, E. (2004) Methods for testing and evaluating survey questions, Public opinion quarterly, 68, 1, pp. 109-130.