Longitudinal Research

Scott Menard is a Professor of Criminal Justice at Sam Houston State University and a research associate in the Institute of Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He received his A.B. at Cornell University and his Ph.D. at the University of Colorado, Boulder, both in Sociology. His interests include quantitative methods and statistics, life course criminology, substance abuse, and criminal victimization. His publications include Longitudinal Research (second edition Sage 2002), Applied Logistic Regression Analysis (second edition Sage 2002), Good Kids from Bad Neighborhoods (Cambridge University Press 2006, with Delbert S. Elliott, Bruce Rankin, Amanda Elliott, William Julius Wilson, and David Huizinga), Youth Gangs (Charles C. Thomas 2006, with Robert J. Franzese and Herbert C. Covey), and the Handbook of Longitudinal Research (Elsevier 2008), as well as other books and journal articles in the areas of criminology, delinquency, population studies, and statistics.

• 1 IntroductionDefinition2 The Purposes of Longitudinal ResearchAge, Period, and Cohort EffectsCausal RelationshipsSerendipity and Intentionality in Longitudinal Data3 Designs for Longitudinal Data CollectionNot-Quite-Longitudinal DesignsTotal Population DesignsRepeated Cross-Sectional DesignsRevolving Panel DesignsLongitudinal Panel DesignsOther Variations4 Issues in Longitudinal Research Genesis Versus PredictionChanges in Measurement Over TimePanel AttritionTreatment of Missing Data in Longitudinal ResearchRepeated Measurement and Panel ConditioningRespondent RecallThe Costs of Longitudinal Research5 Longitudinal AnalysisLongitudinal versus Cross-Sectional Statistical MethodsTypes of Longitudinal Causal ModelsMeasuring ChangeDeterministic versus Probabilistic ModelsPooling Cross-Sectional and Time Series DataTime Series AnalysisMethods for Short Time Serieswith Many CasesMethods for Long Time Seres with Many CasesLongitudinal Versus Cross-Sectional Data and AnalysisNotesReferences