Designing and analyzing your own Experience Sampling Method study

By Nessa Ikani, Dominique Maciejewski and Eeske van Roekel

What works for one, doesn’t always work for all. Especially questions in the context of health, well-being and adaptation would benefit from studying the mood, thoughts and behaviors of individuals. The Experience Sampling Method (ESM) is an innovative research method that allows to study mood, thoughts and behaviors as they unfold in daily life using smartphone apps. ESM has gained immense popularity, due to recent technological advances and because it has many advantages over more traditional survey methods (e.g., higher ecological validity and lower recall bias).

Yet, due to the many decisions that need to be made regarding the design of an ESM study (e.g., study duration, sampling scheme, assessment frequency), it can be difficult to decide on the best fitting design for your research question. Additionally, although ESM is growing in popularity, there has been little systematic evaluation of psychometric properties of self-report instruments to use in ESM studies.

Based on state-of-the-art research, the current workshop provides an overview of the decisions that need to be made when designing and analyzing an ESM study. We will cover what ESM is, its advantages and disadvantages, how to make your data collection a success, and how to analyse time-intensive longitudinal data. Throughout the workshop, we will use examples from our own ESM studies and provide the opportunities to discuss and work on your own research question, to create a hands-on experience. At the end of the workshop, you will have the right tools to get started with your own ESM study.

Please note: If you want to actively participate in the data-analysis part, you should have R and Rstudio installed on your laptop before the workshop.

Registration Link

https://forms.office.com/e/bU6S9UK5MK

Date

May 29, from 13.00-17.00

Location

Tilburg University, Simon Building

Costs

€50 for non-VNOP, non-TESC members

€25 for VNOP members

Free for TESC members