Longitudinal research design is unique as it follows a long timeline that depends entirely on the participants. This means you take several years to collect data, depending on your timeline. Longitudinal research is the best approach to identify and measure therapy’s impact over time. Through this research, you can collect high-quality data which can offer you the ability to change the fields of sociology, psychology and medicine dramatically. If you want to do research that could strongly impact your field and academic career, then this research is the best choice for you. PaydayChampion makes it simple to get the funding you need for your research. Like any other research design, longitudinal research design has certain advantages and disadvantages. This article has listed some important pros and cons you need to know before using this research.
Longitudinal Research Design:
Longitudinal research design is usually used in medical research and other social sciences subjects such as sociology or political science. With the help of this research design, you do a longitudinal survey with useful insights. It would be best if you had time to do a project with a long-term engagement. Longitudinal research usually uses surveys to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. Moreover, in a longitudinal study, you have to distribute survey questionnaires for a long time to properly analyze the changes in attitudes or behaviours of participants. Many medical and social sciences studies use longitudinal research in which researchers collect data from participants for many years. However, there are some other researchers who can’t work with this design and hire the best dissertation writing services UK.
Types of Longitudinal Research:
There are usually 3 types of longitudinal research design:
Panel Study:
It deals with sampling a cross-section of people.
Cohort Study:
It selects samples based on groups for events like historical experience, location, geography, or birth.
Retrospective Study:
It looks to the past and observes historical information.
Advantages Of Longitudinal Research Design:
Following are the advantages of longitudinal research:
Gives A High Level Of Accuracy:
To ensure that the long-term study is successful, you must follow regulations and rules properly from the very start to have a clear path. It would help if you determined the end goal from the start and outlined each of your steps to verify the accuracy of the collected data. This shows high levels of validity of the collected data in longitudinal research.
A Unique Way To Collect Data:
Longitudinal research has extended the timeframe of data gathering on a dramatic scale. This type of research has unique data collection criteria as it can be used for short-term and long-term relationships. This can help you in collecting quality data that can offer meaningful impacts.
Uses Observational Method:
Many longitudinal research designs use observational methods for the collection of data. Because of this, it is easy to gather data consistently. This could impact the outcomes of your research in the end.
Easy To Identify Trends Related To Development:
This research design is useful for many subjects like sociology, psychology, and medicine. Long-term research helps to find relationships and trends in the collected data. Through this research, we can properly track the human life span. You can collect data and analyze the trends for multiple generations to find real-time impacts. Changes you observe made from the past data can also be used to find future trends and outcomes.
Disadvantages Of Longitudinal Research Design:
Following are some disadvantages of longitudinal research:
It Has Some Factor Of Unpredictability:
Longitudinal research involves dealing with the same topic for a long time period. However, your result can be impacted by what event happened outside of the study area. Many individuals may choose to stop participating in your research. Other people may find it hard to be connected to the accurate demographics of your research. Including these factors in your research can impact the validity of your findings in your research.
It Takes Much Time:
There is a huge possibility that researchers who are doing this study might not see results with the completion of their study. It is because it could take many years before you start seeing meaningful relationships or patterns from the collected data. Therefore, you must wait a long time in this research and maintain proper communication to get effective outcomes for your study.
This Does Not Always Give Accurate Data:
Your results produced by the longitudinal research design can become invalidated or inaccurate by just one small mistake like unreliable information due to personal bias towards a particular topic or issue. Researchers unconsciously change the intended outcomes of the study while processing the data.
It Requires High Skills:
This research relies highly on the skills of the researchers. It is because data is collected in real-time in this research. The quality of data you will collect depends on your research and other types of skills. Two people with different skill levels can produce different results for the same topic. Your personal views on the topic can also influence the outcomes of your study.
It Needs Large Sizes Of Samples:
To develop patterns or relationships, you must collect a large amount of data to create meaningful results. This means you need large size of sample to meet the expectations for your data collection. When people are your studies’ main subject, it becomes very hard to find many individuals who want to participate in your study for the long term.
Conclusion:
The pros and cons of longitudinal research design manifest huge value in finding long-term trends, patterns and relationships. With this research, you can get real-time outcomes which can be effectively used for future analysis. This research can also give you more accurate data as it uses the observation method to collect data. However, this research can take a lot of time and requires higher research skills. Because of the large sample and long period, unpredictability is also high. If you plan the unpredictable factors of your research from the beginning and take steps to remove personal bias, you can collect high-quality data. This will allow you to change the fields of sociology, psychology and medicine.
