Students' Experiences with Ecological Momentary Assessment Tools to Report on Emotional Well-being

Abstract

Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) methods have emerged as an approach that enhances the ecological validity of data collected for the study of human behavior and experience. In particular, EMA methods are used to capture individuals' experiences (e.g., symptoms, affect, and behaviors) in real-world contexts and in near-real time. However, work investigating participants' experiences in EMA studies and in particular, how these experiences may influence the collected data, is limited. We conducted in-depth focus groups with 32 participants following an EMA study on mental well-being in college students. In doing so, we probed how the elicitation of high-quality, reflective responses is related to the design of EMA interactions. Through our study, we distilled three primary considerations for designing EMA interactions, based on observations of 1) response strategies to repeated questions, 2) the perceived burden of EMA prompts, and 3) challenges to the validity and robustness of EMA data. We present these considerations in the context of two microinteraction-based EMA approaches that we tested: lock-screen EMA and image-based question prompts. We conclude by characterizing design tensions in the presentation and delivery of EMA prompts, and outline directions for future work to address these tensions.