Population
This is the landing page for topics related to defining the population about which you aim to draw inferences.
By carefully specifying the population, we ensure that the results can be meaningfully generalized to the intended group of cases that our research question is about. A case refers to the entity being studied, such as an individual, a dyad, or a school. Your population can consist of multiple cases (e.g., teenagers in the Netherlands, or couples who have been together for at least 5 years); but you can also restrict your focus to a single case (e.g., a specific teenager, or a particular couple).
Below we have specified multiple topics that may help circumscribe the population of interest.
Think more about your population
Defining your population of interest
Drawing conclusions about one or more cases
- [Population-focused, process-focused, or both]
- [Nomothetic versus idiographic]
- [Cross-sectional vs. N=1 vs. panel vs. ILD research]
- Intra-individual versus inter-individual correlation
- Ergodicity
- Ecological fallacy