FSU Cross Sectional & Longitudinal Study Ecological Fallacy & Child Abuse Discussion

1) What is the difference between a cross-sectional study and a longitudinal study?

2) Explain the ‘ecological fallacy’ in your own words.

3) Consider a problem in social work in which you have a special interest (such a child abuse, mental illness, gerontology, and so on). Formulate three different research questions about that problem, each of which would be important for the field to answer. Formulate each question to deal with a different research purpose: one for exploration, one for description, and one for explanation.

4) Select a different research topic than above. Then, considering that research topic, formulate three different research questions: one in which you would conduct a trend study, one in which you would conduct a cohort study, and one in which you would conduct a panel study.