Perhaps a researcher wants to understand how students’ dating habits vary throughout their four years of college. Rather than tracking one group of students for four years, they can observe the dating habits of separate groups of freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors at the same time.

This experiment uses a cross-sectional research design—an approach where researchers simultaneously collect data across multiple sections of the population—which is a particularly time-effective way to compare the attitudes and behaviors of different age-groups.

For instance, they may find that seniors are more likely to go out to fancier restaurants and be less nervous about dating than freshmen. However, they will not be able to make firm conclusions about how students’ dating habits develop over their four years at college.

In addition to age, researchers could compare groups of people from different socioeconomic backgrounds, education levels, geographic locations, and more.

For example, the same researcher can use the approach to compare the dating habits of freshmen college students from different socioeconomic backgrounds.

Now, they may find that students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to worry about the cost of a date than students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds.

Again, because the data from all cohorts are being collected at the same time, no firm conclusions about the causal relationship between variables—like socioeconomic status and dining choice—can be made.

Ultimately, cross-sectional research takes a snapshot of a moment in time and explores differences between cohorts. Due to the inherent limitations, such studies can provide preliminary results to fuel future research.