How Does the Cross-Sectional Research Method Work?

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How Does the Cross-Sectional Research PRINT

Method Work?
Advantages and Challenges
By Kendra Cherry Medically reviewed by Steven Gans, MD Updated on October 10, 2019

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A cross-sectional study involves looking at data from a population at one
speci c point in time.
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Verywell / Jessica Olah

How and When Cross-Sectional Studies Advertisement

Are Used
The participants in this type of study are selected based on particular
variables of interest. Cross-sectional studies are often used in
developmental psychology, but this method is also utilized in many other
areas including social science and education.

For example, researchers studying developmental psychology might

select groups of people who are di erent ages but investigate them at
one point in time. By doing this, any di erences between the age Advertisement

groups can presumably be attributed to age di erences rather than

something that happened over time.

Cross-sectional studies are observational in nature and are known as

descriptive research, not causal or relational, meaning that you can't use
them to determine the cause of something, such as a disease. Researchers
record the information that is present in a population, but they do not
manipulate variables.

This type of research can be used to describe characteristics that exist in a

community, but not to determine cause-and-e ect relationships between
di erent variables. This method is often used to make inferences about
possible relationships or to gather preliminary data to support further
research and experimentation.

The Defining Characteristics of Cross- Advertisement

Sectional Studies
Some of the key characteristics of a cross-sectional study include: [1]

The study takes place at a single point in time

It does not involve manipulating variables

It allows researchers to look at numerous characteristics at once

(age, income, gender, etc.)

It's often used to look at the prevailing characteristics in a given

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population

It can provide information about what is happening in a current

population

Think of a cross-sectional study as a snapshot of a particular group of

people at a given point in time. Unlike longitudinal studies that look at a
group of people over an extended period, cross-sectional studies are used
to describe what is happening at the present moment.

This type of research is frequently used to determine the prevailing

characteristics in a population at a certain point in time. For example, a
cross-sectional study might be used to determine if exposure to speci c
risk factors might correlate with particular outcomes.

A researcher might collect cross-sectional data on past smoking habits and

current diagnoses of lung cancer, for example. While this type of study
cannot demonstrate cause-and-e ect, it can provide a quick look at
correlations that may exist at a particular point. Advertisement

For example, researchers may nd that people who reported engaging

in certain health behaviors were also more likely to be diagnosed with
speci c ailments. While a cross-sectional study cannot prove for
certain that these behaviors caused the condition, such studies can
point to a relationship worth investigating further.

Advantages Advertisement

Some of the advantages of cross-sectional studies include:

They're inexpensive and fast. Cross-sectional studies are usually

relatively inexpensive and allow researchers to collect a great deal of
information quite quickly. Data is often obtained using self-report Advertisement

surveys and researchers are then able to amass large amounts of

information from a large pool of participants.

They allow di erent variables. Researchers can collect data on some

di erent variables to see how di erences in sex, age, educational
status, and income might correlate with the critical variable of
interest.

They pave the way for further study. While cross-sectional studies

cannot be used to determine causal relationships, they can provide a
useful springboard to further research. When looking at a public
health issue, such as whether a particular behavior might be linked
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to a particular illness, researchers might utilize a cross-sectional
study to look for clues that will serve as a useful tool to guide further
experimental studies. For example, researchers might be interested
in learning how exercise in uences cognitive health as people age.
They might collect data from di erent age groups on how much
exercise they get and how well they perform on cognitive tests.
Performing such a study can give researchers clues about the types
of exercise that might be the most bene cial to cognitive health and
inspire further experimental research on the subject.

Challenges
Some of the potential challenges of cross-sectional studies include:

Does not di erentiate cause and e ect: There are other variables that
can a ect the relationship between the inferred cause and outcomes.
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Cohort di erences: Groups can be a ected by cohort di erences that
arise from the particular experiences of a unique group of people.
Individuals born during the same period may share important
historical experiences, but people in that group who are born in a
given geographic region may share experiences limited solely to
their physical location. Individuals who were alive during the
invasion of Pearl Harbor, Vietnam, or 9/11 might have shared
experiences that make them di erent from other age groups, for
example.

Report biases: Surveys or questionnaires about certain aspects of

people's lives may not always result in accurate reporting. Advertisement

Cross-Sectional vs. Longitudinal Studies

This type of research di ers from longitudinal studies in that cross-
sectional studies are designed to look at a variable at a particular point in
time. Longitudinal studies involve taking multiple measures over an
extended period.

As you might imagine, longitudinal studies tend to require more resources

and are often more expensive than cross-sectional resources. They are also
more likely to be in uenced by what is known as selective attrition, which
means that some individuals are simply more likely to drop out of a study
than others, which can in uence the validity of the study.

One of the advantages of cross-sectional studies is that since data is

collected all at once, it's less likely that participants will quit the study
before data is fully collected.

A Word From Verywell

Cross-sectional studies can be a useful research tool in many areas of
health research. By learning more about what is going on in a speci c
population, researchers are better able to understand relationships that
might exist between certain variables and develop further studies that
explore these conditions in greater depth.

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