Individual development and adaptation: A life-span longitudinal program suited for person-oriented research

Abstract

In this article, we give a presentation of the longitudinal research program Individual Development and Adaptation (IDA) that can be helpful as a template for researchers considering to launch their own longitudinal studies, and that opens the door to IDA for researchers looking for suitable data to be analyzed within their own project or in collaboration with IDA. We also introduce the holistic-interactionistic theoretical framework of IDA and the associated person-oriented approach – an approach that is especially suited for analyzing the rich IDA data set with its broad coverage of different areas of adjustment and related factors. The paper provides an overview of the essential features of the IDA database, as well as of ongoing and planned IDA research.