Methodological considerations in pretesting social impact questionnaires : reporting on the use of focus groups

![CDATA[In recent years there has been a shift in focus towards greater recognition of the social consequences of events. Most of this research has resulted in the innovative development of empirical scales to measure resident perceptions of social impacts. The instruments that are used in these studies are well reported within the literature. However, it has been found that there is limited reporting of the methodological tools used for pretesting these instruments. It is argued in this paper that there is a requirement for more detailed accounts of pretesting techniques to be included in methodological reporting. In doing so, the method of data collection can be assured and other researchers can readily replicate the studies. This is important, as an understanding of phenomena will progress more productively if researchers are able to follow, and build on, other empirical analyses. This paper focuses on the methodological reports of social impact event studies to demonstrate this issue. Therefore the paper has four aims. First, a review of methodological frameworks within the existing literature for pretesting social impact instruments is presented. Second, the paper details the use of Focus Groups as a tool for pretesting social impact questionnaires on two community music festivals. Third, the results of the pretest are presented in terms of the changes made to the questionnaire items based on pretest feedback. Fourth, the benefits and limitations of this technique as a methodological tool for pretesting social impact questionnaires are discussed.]]