Appendix G Pilot Test

Appendix G: Pilot Test

Lessons Learned from Pilot Study of Taxicab Drivers for ‘Taxicab Driver Survey’

Over the week of August 12^th 9 taxicab drivers were interviewed to identify survey weaknesses and provide opportunities for improvement in any aspect. The following comments/critiques were made.

1. Q9: How often does your work as a taxi driver require you to work very fast.

‘Fast’ doesn’t make sense in the context of taxicab driver tasks, so I’ve changed the wording to ‘How often does your work as a taxi driver make you feel rushed’?

2. Additionally, for scale responses, I’ve identified that I need to have a notecard to assist the respondent in making the most accurate selection. I need to have a notecard each for the following responses:

(Rarely/Never) 1 2 3 4 5 (Very often/All the time)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

No safer than before Extremely safe

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Least informative Most informative

Strongly agree-₁ Agree-₂ Disagree-₃ Strongly Disagree-₄

3. For Questions 14, 16, 18, 20, 22 and 24 the first response, ‘about one time in the past 24 months’ should be changed to ‘sometimes’.

4. Directions in italics for surveyor have been modified to clearly inform surveyor so that it is clear drivers are being surveyed rather than completing the surveys themselves. These have been modified throughout the survey (for most questions).

5. For Questions 9-12 I revised the anchor for 5 to be ‘Very often/All the time’ as a logical balance for ‘Rarely/Never’, which was a decision I had already made for other similar questions.

6. I decided to soften the language for the crash questions. The wording was changed to ‘were there any deaths’ ‘was anybody injured’ to make it sound a little more neutral.

7. For the series of questions on camera use, Q27, I revised some wording for 27c, added a missing skip pattern for answering ‘No’ to 27e and removed a redundant skip pattern for answering ‘Yes’.

8. For the question on closing the partition (Q28a), I separated the response into proportion of time closed at night versus during the day.

9. I revised the instruction for selecting race.

Overall, the drivers found the survey length appropriate for the questions asked, not too long for the compensation provided, and were eager to share their experiences regarding workplace violence. The chief safety concern among taxicab drivers was workplace events, so they were eager to share. The drivers were unanimous in thinking the airport waiting lot was a better interview location than during inspection where drivers are frequently asked questions about their taxicab.