This article examines the development of panel studies and their main characteristics. The first part of this article outlines the historical development of panel studies. Here special reference is made to the first panel studies ever undertaken, and the influence of Paul Lazarsfeld on this field of research. Thereafter, there is an overview of some recent national panel studies, and different approaches used in the analysis of panel data. The second part of this article concentrates on the panel study as a type of longitudinal research where special attention is given to a number of issues: unit of analysis, mode of data collection, time span between waves of data collection, duration of panel studies, research themes and policy influences, and opportunities for studying change at the individual (micro) level. In the final section, there is a discussion of the specific difficulties associated with panel study research., Zdeňka Lechnerová., and Obsahuje bibliografii a bibliografické odkazy
This article explores how aggregate level data may be used to make inferences about individual level behaviour. A common strategy in the past was to assume that the relations evident in aggregated data are also present in individual data. Analysis of datasets where there is both individual and aggregated information demonstrates that this assumption is most often incorrect. This means that the relationships observed between variables at an aggregated level are unlikely to be observed in individual level data. This is a problem because quite often social scientists only have aggregated data for exploring individual level behaviour. A key question explored in this article is how is it possible to validly and reliably use aggregated datasets to make inferences about relationships between variables at the individual level. An example analysis is given using electoral data from the Czech Republic., Pat Lyons., 4 obrázky, 4 tabulky, Obsahuje bibliografii, and Anglické resumé