Daily Diary Design

Abstract

The daily diary is a research method that aims to capture experiences of participants across their day‐to‐day natural contexts. Although daily diaries involve higher participant burden and can be more expensive than traditional survey methods, they offer greater ecological validity and measurement sensitivity than other approaches through their use of repeated assessments. Diary methods are classified into three designs: time contingent, signal contingent, and event contingent. Depending upon the particular design, diary data can be obtained from several diary‐collection formats, such as paper‐and‐pencil, telephone interview, and electronic response. Diary data provide rich information that allows researchers to make between‐person comparisons and examine within‐person processes through the use of multilevel modeling. Research since the late 1990s has applied diary designs to understand complex and naturally occurring psychophysiological processes.