Vertaile menetelmiä

	Kuvaileva tutkimus	Pitkittäistutkimus	Tutkimusmenetelmä: Kyselytutkimus
Tieteenala	Tutkimusasetelma	Tutkimusasetelma	Tutkimusasetelma
Menetelmäperhe	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Syntyvuosi	Late 19th century; formalized in social/behavioral sciences ~1960s–1980s	Late 19th–early 20th century; methodologically codified through the 20th century	Late 19th century; methodologically systematised 1940s–1960s
Kehittäjä	Francis Galton, Karl Pearson (early empirical tradition); formalized in social science by Fred Kerlinger	No single originator; foundational methodological treatments by Stuart Menard and Judith Singer & John Willett	Francis Galton, Charles Booth, and early social statisticians; systematised by Paul Lazarsfeld and colleagues at Columbia in the 1940s
Tyyppi	Non-experimental quantitative research design	Quantitative (or mixed) observational research design	Quantitative (and mixed) non-experimental design
Alkuperäislähde	Creswell, J. W. (2014). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches (4th ed.). Sage. ISBN: 978-1452226101	Menard, S. (2002). Longitudinal Research (2nd ed.). Sage Publications. ISBN: 978-0761922841	Fowler, F. J. (2014). Survey Research Methods (5th ed.). Sage Publications. ISBN: 978-1452259000
Rinnakkaisnimet	descriptive study, descriptive survey design, observational descriptive research, non-experimental descriptive research	longitudinal study, longitudinal design, prospective longitudinal study, repeated-measures observational study	survey methodology, questionnaire research, survey design, survey study
Liittyvät	3	4	4
Tiivistelmä	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.	Longitudinal research is an observational design in which the same participants, groups, or units are measured repeatedly over an extended period. Rather than capturing a single snapshot, it tracks change, stability, and temporal sequencing of variables — making it the primary non-experimental strategy for studying development, growth, decline, and the unfolding of causal processes across time.	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.