Practice question · Sort into groups
Sort each strength or weakness under the design it describes.
Groups: Longitudinal · Cross-sectional
- Directly measures real change within a person
- Threatened by attrition over the years
- Time-consuming and expensive
- Fast and cheap to run
- Threatened by cohort effects
Hints
- Following the same people over years is powerful but slow and leaky; comparing age groups at once is quick but confounded.
- Attrition and expense belong to longitudinal; speed and cohort effects belong to cross-sectional.
Show the answer
Longitudinal: Directly measures real change within a person, Threatened by attrition over the years, Time-consuming and expensive
Cross-sectional: Fast and cheap to run, Threatened by cohort effects
Why
Longitudinal directly measures change but is slow, costly, and prone to attrition; cross-sectional is fast and cheap but confounded by cohort effects. The trade-off is precision-about-change versus speed.
Practise Advanced Methodologies
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