1. Adolescent Development-51 DB4

PLEASE RESPOND TO TOLEDO'S INITIAL DISCUSSION POST

According to the book Cross sectional design is the most common research design when it comes to studying adoloscents (Arnett, 2023). In this case data is collected a single time on a sample of a population. The researcher takes that data and examines the relation to the initial hypothisis. This, just like all research methods has strenghts and drawbacks that effect the validity of the research. The strengths of this type of study come with time and money. The book describes these studies as quick and cheap. The other side of that is the limitations attached to this research design. The correalations that these studies rely on can be tough to interpret making the study not worth while. According to the book it is these limitations that drive researchers towards Longitudal models. These studies follow samples for a much longer period of time. It can be as low as two studies but sometimes the studies can last over a life time. This research method allows researchers to clearly see change by following patterns in their data. There are limitations to this as well such as time, attrition, and expenses. According to the book some of these studies prove fruitless due to dropout over time.

The Dependent variable for the study was the use of substances. The independent variable was the timing of puberty. The hypothesis was that adoloscents who believed they were farther along in puberty were more likely to use substances. The participants were students in the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. The data was collected through a questionaire.

According to the article the hypothesis was supported by the data and showed substance use among early developers. The researcher also noted inclusiveness in the studies as prior research did not include much data on females. This study used a longitudal model to show data and change over time. It was a quicker version of this model as they did not follow the sample.

PLEASE RESPOND TO CHARPENTIER'S INITIAL DISCUSSION POST

Why would a researcher decide to use a longitudinal instead of a cross-sectional design to collect data? Take the advantages and disadvantages of each design into consideration in your discussion of each design. This discussion should be at least 3/4 of a page long.

There are many reasons why a researcher may pick to use longitudinal research design over cross-sectional design. Both are used in observational studies. Let us discusses cross-sectional and longitudinal. We will explain what each one is and talk about the pros and cons of each one.

To start we will discuss cross-sectional. Cross-sectional research is the most is the most common design when studying adolescents and emerging adults (Arnett, 2018). Doing this method you will collect data on a sample of people only once. The researcher will then look at this data and see the relations between the data. The pros of cross-sectional study are that is allows the research to compare many different variable all at the same time (Cross-sectional vs. longitudinal studies 2015). This process is very quick do when researching. It is also an inexpensive process.

The cons that go with this method are it does not provide definite information about cause-and effect relationships Cross-sectional vs. longitudinal studies 2015). This is because it only takes data from a single time. It does consider the time before or after this data. It is not accurate because it doesn't consider what could have occur before or after the data is collected.

For Longitudinal like cross sectional is a research method that looks at studying adolescents and emerging adults. This method takes data over a period of time not just a single time. The Pros of this are that researchers are able to detect developments or changes in the characteristics of the research subsets at both a group and individual level Cross-sectional vs. longitudinal studies 2015). This method is more detailed than cross section. Because it records data over a long period of time is can monitor the changes that go with it.