In this case, she may discover that those who enjoyed running outdoors in their 20s maintain blood pressure levels, display low amounts of stress, and are more likely to do yoga in their 40s. This approach allows her to best measure changes, within individuals, over time. In addition, the same researcher may keep track of a group of people for twenty years, because she wants to explore how their exercise routines shift across their 20s, 30s and 40s. She may find that as students get more caught up in their studies, they go to the gym less often. These objectives can be accomplished using a longitudinal design-a research study where data are repeatedly collected from the same group of individuals for a period of time, whether it’s as short as a few weeks or months or as long as several decades.įor example, if a researcher wants to know whether college students’ exercise routines change over the course of their first semester of college, she can use a longitudinal approach and ask students to repeatedly report their workout regiments.

Sometimes the goal of a psychological study may be to understand how people’s attitudes and behaviors change over time, or to determine what factors may predict future abilities.

Longitudinal studies