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A pilot is a small, fast run to check that a new measure or task actually works — that the wording is clear, the items behave, and nothing is confusing — before you spend a real sample on it. The loop is simple: draft, share with a few people, read what they say, tighten, repeat. The quickest start is the Pilot a new measure starter template on Explore.

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How the starter is built

The pilot starter is a short, single-arm study (no random-assignment conditions — everyone takes the same thing):
  • A brief introduction screen.
  • A “Draft scale” screen group with four 7-point Likert items and one continuous-scale (VAS) item, all on one screen, with placeholder wording you replace with your own statements.
  • An open-text feedback question — “What, if anything, was confusing about these questions? How would you reword them?” — which is the real point of a pilot.
  • A thank-you screen.
The pilot starter has no conditions — it runs as a single arm. You’re testing the instrument itself, not comparing groups. (If you do want to compare two versions of a measure, that’s an A/B test.)

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The pilot loop

1

Draft your items

Replace the placeholder Likert and VAS items with your own statements. Keep it short — a pilot is about catching problems, not collecting findings.
2

Publish a runnable version

Publish freezes a runnable version without an OSF push — exactly right for an exploratory pilot. (Save preregistration for the real study.)
3

Share the link with a few people

Open recruitment on the Run stage to activate the participant link, then send it to a handful of colleagues or friends. No Prolific or recruitment service needed for a pilot of this size.
4

Watch responses land

Responses appear on the study Dashboard as people finish. Read the open-text feedback closely — it tells you which items were ambiguous.
5

Tighten and re-run

Edit the Draft to fix the wording, publish a new version, and share again. Iterate until the measure reads cleanly.
The study dashboard with responses

Watch pilot responses land on the study dashboard as you share the link.

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Why pilot before you preregister

Preregistration freezes your plan — including your measures. Piloting first means the items you lock in are ones you’ve already seen behave on real people, so your preregistered study isn’t the first time anyone has read your questions.
A pilot run is also a good moment to sanity-check timing, mobile layout (use Live preview’s device frames), and that required-answer validation behaves the way you expect.

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From pilot to full study

When the measure is solid, you don’t start over — keep building on the same study: add your manipulation or conditions, expand the sample plan, preregister, and recruit a full sample on Prolific. Your pilot version stays in the study’s history.