Comparar métodos

	Investigación Descriptiva Transversal	Investigación Descriptiva	Investigación por Encuestas
Campo	Diseño de investigación	Diseño de investigación	Diseño de investigación
Familia	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Año de origen	Mid-20th century (1950s–1970s, widespread codification)	Late 19th century; formalized in social/behavioral sciences ~1960s–1980s	Late 19th century; methodologically systematised 1940s–1960s
Autor original	Rooted in survey methodology traditions; formalized in epidemiology and social science research design texts of the mid-20th century	Francis Galton, Karl Pearson (early empirical tradition); formalized in social science by Fred Kerlinger	Francis Galton, Charles Booth, and early social statisticians; systematised by Paul Lazarsfeld and colleagues at Columbia in the 1940s
Tipo	Quantitative observational research design	Non-experimental quantitative research design	Quantitative (and mixed) non-experimental design
Fuente seminal	Creswell, J. W. (2014). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches (4th ed.). Sage. ISBN: 978-1452226101	Creswell, J. W. (2014). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches (4th ed.). Sage. ISBN: 978-1452226101	Fowler, F. J. (2014). Survey Research Methods (5th ed.). Sage Publications. ISBN: 978-1452259000
Alias	cross-sectional survey, descriptive cross-sectional study, prevalence study, one-shot descriptive survey	descriptive study, descriptive survey design, observational descriptive research, non-experimental descriptive research	survey methodology, questionnaire research, survey design, survey study
Relacionados	3	3	4
Resumen	Cross-sectional descriptive research collects data from a population or sample at a single point in time to portray the current distribution of characteristics, attitudes, behaviors, or conditions. It answers 'what is happening now?' questions without manipulating variables or following participants over time. Widely used in epidemiology, education, psychology, and the social sciences, it is the foundation for prevalence estimates, needs assessments, and baseline profiling.	Descriptive research is a non-experimental quantitative design that systematically documents the characteristics, frequencies, or distributions of variables in a defined population at a given point in time. It answers 'what is' questions — who, what, when, where, and how much — without manipulating variables or drawing causal conclusions. It is one of the most widely used research designs across the social, behavioral, health, and education sciences.	Survey research is a quantitative (and sometimes mixed-methods) design in which a researcher collects standardised self-report data from a sample drawn from a defined population, using a questionnaire or structured interview. It is the dominant non-experimental strategy for describing population characteristics, estimating prevalence, mapping attitude distributions, and testing bivariate or multivariate associations across social, behavioural, and health sciences.