Practise planning repeated measurement of the same participants over time, choosing meaningful intervals and evaluating attrition, contact, duration and cohort alternatives.
Dr Gao is planning a longitudinal study about changes in reading habits. She will study the same group of participants from childhood, through adolescence and into adulthood.
Dr Gao will need to contact her participants at regular intervals.
Dr Gao is deciding how often to test her participants, and is considering:
- weekly
- yearly.
Explain which of these intervals is the most suitable for Dr Gao's study.
Dr Gao is planning a longitudinal study about changes in reading habits. She will study the same group of participants from childhood, through adolescence and into adulthood.
Dr Gao will need to contact her participants at regular intervals-
Dr Gao is deciding how often to test her participants, and is considering:
- weekly
- yearly.
Explain which of these intervals is the most suitable for Dr Gao's study.
Explanation of yearly = 1
- Children's reading does not change fast enough to be visible over a week;
- Changes in reading ability are slow, so could take a year to show
- testing children every week would be unkind/intense/a lot of pressure/stressful.
1
Suggest how Dr Gao could contact her participants during the study.
Suggest how Dr Gao could contact her participants during the study.
Suggesting how to recontact = 1
Send letter/email (to address collected at the start of study); phone (with number collected as start of study);
1
Suggest two problems that Dr Gao may have when trying to contact her participants at regular intervals.
1
2
Problem =1×2
- They might not reply;
- They may have changed address/phone number;
- They may have died/become too ill to participate;
- They may no longer want to participate;
- They may not be available (at that time for a call);
- They may have gone on holiday so cannot reply;
- They may have withdrawn
2
A colleague, Dr Roberts, says that the study could be conducted by comparing participants of different ages at one point in time.
Suggest one advantage of Dr Roberts' idea, compared to Dr Gao's plan for a longitudinal study.
Do not refer to contacting participants in your answer.
's idea compared to Dr Gao's plan for a longitudinal study.
Do not refer to contacting participants in your answer.
Advantage of Dr Roberts' idea/disadvantage of longitudinal = 1
Link = 1
Advantage (or disadvantage of longitudinal)
- Differences may be due to society not age/ (disadvantage)
- Dr Roberts' idea would mean that you do not have a third variable of culture/societal changes which may affect reading habits (advantage)
- You would be less likely to have participants drop out (subject attrition) when doing the study at one-point int time (advantage)
Link
- Time available for reading changes with society; (link)
- People now have less time for reading than they did; (link)
- People read more on the internet now rather than books; (link)
- Reading materials change over time; (link)
- The results more representative of reading habits than a longitudinal study (where people have dropped out) (link)
2
References to changes in reading over the lifespan =0 [NAQ]
Children read comics but adults read newspapers =0 [NAQ]