Week 2: Pilot Testing Our Flu Vaccine Survey

Hello everyone,

This week began with the pilot test for the first draft of the survey, as I focused on refining the survey instrument. I asked family and friends to test the first draft of the survey. Detailed feedback by eight people helped me identify the areas to be fine-tuned.

Several strong findings were obtained from the answers provided by the participants. Most recommended the use of the specific terms “Before March 2020” and “Currently” because these are more specific than other temporal terms used, thus increasing the level of consistency in interpretation among the responders. It was also realized that the use of the open-ended questions at the end can lead to respondent fatigue. Thus, the formulation was altered to induce brief yet thoughtful answers, with prompts to facilitate understanding—more so for the specific side effects and reliance on other sources of information.

In addition, definitions were established to enable proper distinction to be made among the group’s benefits and individual protections so that proper responses by the participants could be facilitated. The question regarding the frequency of prior influenza vaccinations was rephrased to include a wider set of response options. A new open-ended question was added to ask the participants to provide the reasoning for the trust or distrust in specific sources of information. This added level of detail is expected to provide richer information about the group’s attitudes towards communications about the flu vaccine.

I reached out to more contacts throughout the week to review the most recent draft. I hope to finalize the survey draft according to the plan so that it addresses the intricacies of the perceptions towards vaccinations among the younger (16-18) and older (65+) age groups. 

Conducting pilot tests in the field last week was a necessary activity to test the validity and reliability of the survey instrument. I expect the refinements to make it easier to gather more open and constructive feedback and to gain better understanding about the changes in attitudes towards vaccination that have taken place both before and after the COVID-19 pandemic began.

I truly appreciate the interest expressed throughout this project and look forward to the chance to present further breakthroughs in the future.