Cross-Sectional Studies: What Are They?

  Any investigation requires an action plan that allows the acquisition of the necessary information to respond to the problem. This plan is known as research design. Among those that stand out in this area are the experimental designs and the non-experimental or observational ones. For example, among the experimental ones we find the pre-experimental studies, the quasi-experiments, and the pure experiments. On the other hand, in observational designs, we can find cross-sectional studies (or transactional studies) and longitudinal or evolutionary studies. Cross-sectional studies belong to a much broader category of research designs. With these, researchers must visualize in an…