Characteristics of piloting longitudinal birth cohort surveys: a systematic review

This paper aims to provide a comprehensive overview of piloting approaches, systemize piloting processes, and underline good practices in large scale longitudinal birth cohort studies. We identified 54 eligible studies, and by applying predefined inclusion criteria, we included 10 studies in the systematic review. The main findings are that the longitudinal birth cohort surveys most often include all three types of pilots in every sweep—pre-test, instruments pilot and dress rehearsal. Sampling procedures and sample sizes in pilots vary a lot depending on the type and aims of a pilot, and from sweep to sweep. The reporting on piloting and its key findings is regularly present in longitudinal birth cohort studies, especially for instruments pilots and dress rehearsals, while it is less common for pre-tests. Based on the findings, the recommendations for other researchers are to adopt the same terms for different types of pilots—pre-pilots, instruments pilots and dress rehearsals, to extend and uniform reports on piloting, to report information about pilots’ response and attrition rates, and to dedicate a separate chapter to piloting in survey general technical report.