Distinguish between cross-sectional and longitudinal research designs and provide an example of each. Identify at least one advantage and one disadvantage of each type of design.
What will be an ideal response?
Longitudinal research is when the same person or group of people are followed for a period of time. This design is good for questions that ask how an individual changes over time. An example would be to take a group of three-year-olds and measure them yearly to determine when a sense of wrong occurs in their moral development. One advantage of longitudinal studies is that they provide lots of interesting information and truly capture age-related changes; their drawbacks include their expense, the time and effort required to conduct them, and the loss of subjects over time due to various reasons. A cross-sectional design involves looking at groups across different ages at the same time. For instance, you could gather a group of three-year-olds, four-year-olds, five-year-olds, and six-year-olds and see who has developed a sense of wrong in their moral standards. This method tends to be more economical, and you lose fewer subjects; however, it is no longer possible to study change within a specific individual.
You might also like to view...
Which characteristic is transmitted through a specific gene pool?
a. Body structure b. Brain weight c. Hair color d. Walking upright
How do adult mammals with damage to the preoptic area regulate their body temperature?
a. physiologically b. pharmacologically c. behaviorally d. not at all
Cocaethylene
A. is a type of freebase cocaine that uses ether. B. was one of the popular patent medicines sold around 1900. C. is formed in the body when cocaine and alcohol are used together. D. is a precursor for cocaine production.
Studies of rates of schizophrenia among adopted children have shown that
A. the presence of schizophrenia in the adopted parents correlated with schizophrenia in the adopted children. B. the presence of schizophrenia in the biological parents correlated with schizophrenia in the adopted children. C. the presence of schizophrenia in the adopted parents appeared to be as important as the presence of schizophrenia in the biological parents in predicting outcomes of the adopted children. D. schizophrenia neither in the adopted parents nor in the biological parents appeared related to the presence of schizophrenia in the adopted children.