1.3B Measuring change: cross-sectional vs longitudinal designs

How do we measure change in psychology?

1. In fields such as developmental psychology, change is an important factor, but how do we measure it?
2. Behaviour may also change in response to certain stimuli, so it is an important concept to understand.

Prevalence

1. Prevalence is the percentage of the population that exhibit certain traits.
2. It gives us information about the scope and severity of different behaviours.
3. We can also understand how different circumstances change behaviour.
4. We can use prevalence to understand where and how to implement intervention/treatments.

Longitudinal & Repeated Measures Designs

1. Longitudinal designs collect data about the same participants over a long period of time.
2. Repeated measures designs aim to measure the same variable across participants in different conditions

Critical Thinking

Reflection