Defining Ecological Momentary Assessment

Abstract

For research in daily life, multiple terms have been used to describe a quite homogenous set of methodologies. These include, among others, Ecological Momentary Assessment, Ambulatory Assessment, Experience Sampling Method, real-time data capture, and digital phenotyping, just to name a few. Those daily life methods: (i) are characterized by the assessment of data in the real-world; (ii) focus on individuals’ momentary states; (iii) are idiographic in focus and therefore enable, in combination with the repeated micro-longitudinal assessments, the examination of within-subject processes; (iv) are multimodal and can integrate psychological, physiological, and behavioural data from e-diaries, smartphone sensing and wearables; (v) allow to reveal and investigate setting- or context-specific relationships, and (vi) have the possibility to run real-time analyses.