"Putting It Together: Success Sequence
Is there a ""path...

Question

"Putting It Together: Success Sequence

Is there a ""path"" to success? Brookings scholars Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill suggest the path to success is: education, followed by work, followed by marriage, followed by children. Sociologists Wendy Wang and W. Bradford Wilcox tracked a cohort of young millennial adults from their teenage years to early adulthood (ages 28 to 34) and recorded information about their education, marital status, child-rearing, and income.

a. Why is this a cohort study?

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Accepted Answer

Hello there. Today we are going to solve the following practice problem together. So first off, let us read the problem and highlight all the key pieces of information that we need to use in order to solve this problem. Researchers enrolled a group of people born in 1995 and collected data on their educational attainment, employment history. And health status every 2 years from age 18 to age 30. What is this type of study called? Explain. OK. So it appears from this particular problem we're given a scenario, and in this scenario we have researchers who enrolled a group of individuals born in 1995. And they collected data on these individuals based on their educational attainment. Did they go, did they finish high school? Did they go to college, did they go straight into business, etc. Their employment history and their health status every 2 years from ages 18 to age 30. From ages 18 to 30. So based on this information, we're asked to determine what is this type of study called. So that's what we're ultimately trying to solve ours. We're trying to determine what this type of study is called, and we're asked to explain what this type of study is called. So, now that we know what we're ultimately trying to solve for, let's read off our multiple choice answers to see what our final answer may be. A is it is a cross-sectional study that measures many variables at a single time point. B is it is a case control study that compares people with and without a disease. is it is a cohort study because a defined birth cohort was followed over time without experimental intervention and D is it is a randomized controlled trial because participants were assigned to exposure groups. OK. So our first step that we need to take is we need to look at each of our multiple choice answers, and we need to know and to make some following that we need to define some terms, these key terms, in order to help us solve for this problem. So we need to identify and define key terms based on our prior studies. So first off, let's start with defining what does a cohort study. Means. So, as you should recall, a cohort study formula states that for when a cohort study is performed, it is an observational study that follows a group with a shared characteristics with a shared characteristic over time to relate exposures to later outcomes. So once again, that was our first step is we needed to focus our attention on what a cohort study was. Our second step now, so this is step number 2, is we need to recall the identification rule. So as we should recall, a shared characteristic, which I'll call SC for short, a shared characteristic rule and apply it. So once again, using the identity. The rule will focus on the shared characteristic rule, and we will apply it to this particular prompt, and we need to note that the group shares the characteristic of being born in 1995 and thus forms a cohort. So for our 3rd step, we need to recall and apply the longitudinal rule. So once again, as we should recall, longitudinal follow-up is equal to the repeated measurements of the same individuals over time. So once again, a longitudinal follow-up means that there will be repeated measurements done on the same individuals over time. And they will apply this information to the overall experiment to help us collect the data, and we need to note that the data that's collected every 2 years from ages 18 to 30 on the same people. So once again, this data that they're collecting using this longitudinal follow up is they're collecting data on the same individuals over a 2-year time span or every 2 years from ages 18 to 30. So, with that in mind, our 4th and final step is that we can make our final conclusions. So as we have determined based on our prior knowledge, we are dealing with a cohort study because, as we should recall, For this particular problem, it's a cohort study because a defined birth cohort was followed over time without experimental intervention, so that will mean that our final answer without a doubt will be multiple choice answer letter C, which. Again, it is a cohort study because a defined birth cohort was followed over time without experimental intervention. And that's it. Thank you so much for watching. Hopefully that helped and I can't wait to see you in the next video. Bye.

Key Concepts

Cohort Study

Longitudinal Data

Temporal Sequence in Research

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