Survey Research: Panel, Longitudinal and Cross-Sectional Data

Panel Survey

This a type of survey method that involves repeated interviews of a group of people over a specific period of time. It is used to track progress or evolution over time. In other words, when you study Net Profit Margin (NPM) of banks (Say 4 banks) over a period of time (2018 -2020)

You data will look like this:

Banks        TimeNPM
FCMB202050%
FCMB2019 55%
FCMB201851%
First Bank202060%
First Bank2019 70%
First Bank201855%
Fidelity Bank202045%
Fidelity Bank2019 50%
Fidelity Bank201860%
Zenith Bank202080%
Zenith Bank2019 70%
Zenith Bank201875%

Longitudinal Survey

It is another word used to describe panel survey. It refers to any study that examines the same group of people over a period of time.

Cross-sectional survey.

This is refers to data collected by observing many subjects such as individuals, firms, countries at the same point in time or without regard to differences in time. Here data is obtained at a particular point in time. The analysis of cross-sectional data usually consists of comparing the differences among the subjects.  For example, if you are studying the net profit margin (NPM) of four banks in 2020 only. You will have a data that look like this:

Banks        TimeNPM
FCMB202050%
First Bank202060%
Fidelity Bank202045%
Zenith Bank202080%

This is what we called cross sectional data study since you are studying Banks at a particular point in time (2020).