Discussion board 2 - Research Design Class Essay

Discussion board 2 - Research Design Class - Essay Example Such studies are also significant since they present near real life situations as opposed to case studies and experimental studies which may are always done under controlled conditions. An example of business-related research that might be better handled by longitudinal approaches are the buying patterns for grocery products among families in a specific town. This is because, such data will indicate changes in the in the buying patterns and behavior of those families and households over time. Another example of a longitudinal study is a research conducted to determine the suitability of a product in for a market over its lifetime in a market (product market research). This method of study in both cases is suitable since in the first case, measurement of data over time to determine trend is applicable. In the second example, the method is applicable it involves the establishment of temporal order. Posting 1 is correct in stating that longitudinal studies normally gather information on a population at a single point in time. The posting is however wrong to state that quantitative research can be performed more quickly than experimental and longitudinal design. This is because the later two designs are subsets of quantitative research. The US census is a longitudinal study in which case the posting is correct as it involves repetition in collection of the same (or similar) data over time. The example of changing product packaging as an experiment is correctly stated as two groups may be applied (views regarding the first packaging and the second packaging). An experimental study however would not provide answers as to why consumers would like one type of packaging and not the other as stated by the posting. In stating that â€Å"both methods are typically more expensive and time-consuming for a company than performing cross-sectional research†, posting 1 is wrong. This i s so since