Research Methodology study method.. 1) Cross-Sectional Study Design 2) Longitudinal Study Design

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Name of Presentation
1.Cross-Sectional Study Design
2.Longitudinal Study Design

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Cross-Sectional Study Design
 Cross-Sectional Survey Design A cross-
sectional survey collects data to make
inferences about a population of interest
(universe) at one point in time.
 Cross-sectional surveys have been described
as snapshots of the populations about which
they gather data.
 Cross-sectional surveys may be repeated
periodically.

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Cross-Sectional Study Design
 Cross-sectional surveys can thus be contrasted
with panel surveys, for which the individual
respondents are followed over time.
 Cross-sectional surveys can be conducted using
any mode of data collection, including telephone
interviews, face-to-face interviews, mailed
questionnaires.

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Defining Characteristics
 Takes place at a single point in time
 Does not involve manipulating variables
 Allows researchers to look at numerous things at once (age,
income, gender)
 Often used to look at the prevalence of something in a given
population

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Topics of Cross-Sectional Study Design
The health needs of a Community.
The Attitudes of students towards the
facilities available in their library.
Consumer satisfaction with their products.

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Limitation Cross-Sectional Study Design
 While the design sounds relatively simple, finding participants
who are very similar except in one specific variable can be
difficult.
 Groups can be affected by cohort differences that arise from the
particular experiences of a unique group of people.
 Individuals born in the same time period may share important
historical experiences, while people born in a specific geographic
region may share experiences limited solely to their physical
location.

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Longitudinal Study Design
 Longitudinal Study Any social or developmental research
involving collection of data from the same individuals (or
groups) across time.
 Observing change in these individuals gives a better basis
for causal inference than a cross-sectional study, because of
the temporal sequencing involved. In this sense the
longitudinal study is a form of ‘quasi-experimental design’.

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Longitudinal Study Design
 Longitudinal studies can range from repeated measures of a
treatment group and a control group measured at two time
points in an experimental design, to a large-scale long-term
birth cohort study, involving follow-ups of the same sample
of individuals from birth through to adult life.
 Longitudinal studies allow social scientists to distinguish
short from long-term phenomena, such as poverty. If the
poverty rate is 10% at a point in time, this may mean that
10% of the populations are always poor, or that the whole
population experiences poverty for 10% of the time. It is not
possible to conclude which of these possibilities is the case
using one-off cross-sectional study.

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Limitation of Longitudinal studies
 longitudinal studies require enormous amounts of time and are
often quite expensive.
 These studies often have only a small group of subjects, which
makes it difficult to apply the results to a larger population.
 Another problem is that participants sometimes drop out of the
study, shrinking the sample size and decreasing the amount of
data collected.

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Limitation of Longitudinal studies
 longitudinal studies require enormous amounts of time and are
often quite expensive.
 These studies often have only a small group of subjects, which
makes it difficult to apply the results to a larger population.
 Another problem is that participants sometimes drop out of the
study, shrinking the sample size and decreasing the amount of
data collected.