Longitudinal Study

Question 1

what is it?

Answer 1

this is when the same set of participants is followed over a long period of time to examine things such as developmental changes.

Question 2

strengths

Answer 2

1. allows to see how behaviour develops over time e.g. of live events.
2. individual differences between people are controlled as the same people are tracked over a set amount of time. makes findings more valid

Question 3

weaknesses

Answer 3

1. psychologists could become attatched to participants and be subjective in their analysis of data.
2. Not all want to be followed for the length of the study and will drop out. participant attrition

3 sometimes only focused on a small sample hence has an impact on generalisability.