i dont know much, but i know that its about studying age related differences among participants from different life experiences and backgrounds
Yep, that's a basic idea of a cross-sectional study. Cross sectional studies allow researchers to take small samples from different age groups, measure a certain trait and then compare it and try to draw a correlation between age and the measured thing.
For example, if I wanted to look at number of hours of sleep people of different ages get, I might do a cross-sectional study. So I would get say 50 people from each age group of : 0-12 months, 3-5 years, 10-12 years, 20-25 years, etc. etc. Obviously the number of cross-sections you get depends on the amount of money (not relevant, but good to know). I might then ask them to fill out a sleep report for a week and note down how many hours of sleep they get. Then, I'd collect all this data together and compare the results between the ages.
Some potential benefits:
- Quicker and easier than longitudinal studies (don't need to keep track of people for so many years)
Some potential limitations/weaknesses:
- Subject to cohort effects, these are effects that are specific to one particular age group due to a certain event that occurred in their lifetime
- Can require a large number of participants --> costly and difficult to organise
There are probably some more strengths and weaknesses to it, but these are the first that come to mind