Title: Descriptive Research | Introduction to Psychology
Headings: 
Descriptive Research
What you’ll learn to do: describe the strengths and weaknesses of descriptive, experimental, and correlational research
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Learning Objectives
Descriptive Research
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Case Studies
Link to Learning
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Naturalistic Observation
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Surveys
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Think It Over
Archival Research
Longitudinal and Cross-Sectional Research
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Glossary

Content: Research studies that do not test specific relationships between variables are called descriptive, or qualitative, studies. These studies are used to describe general or specific behaviors and attributes that are observed and measured. In the early stages of research it might be difficult to form a hypothesis, especially when there is not any existing literature in the area. In these situations designing an experiment would be premature, as the question of interest is not yet clearly defined as a hypothesis. Often a researcher will begin with a non-experimental approach, such as a descriptive study, to gather more information about the topic before designing an experiment or correlational study to address a specific hypothesis. Descriptive research is distinct from correlational research, in which psychologists formally test whether a relationship exists between two or more variables. Experimental research goes a step further beyond descriptive and correlational research and randomly assigns people to different conditions, using hypothesis testing to make inferences about how these conditions affect behavior. It aims to determine if one variable directly impacts and causes another. Correlational and experimental research both typically use hypothesis testing, whereas descriptive research does not. Each of these research methods has unique strengths and weaknesses, and each method may only be appropriate for certain types of research questions.