Measurement Burst Designs in Developmental Science

Measurement burst designs (MBDs) allow researchers to investigate developmental questions that span from infancy to older adulthood. As hybrids of cross-sectional and longitudinal study designs, MBDs produce an abundance of data that may be leveraged to answer questions about patterns over moments and days and change across years and decades. The focus of this chapter is to provide guidance on how one may use MBDs to answer questions of development, by specifically outlining the type of data produced, analytic techniques used to analyze these data, and design considerations to keep in mind when using an MBD.