Inviting Participants' Peers in a Mobile Assessment Study: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract

Mobile assessment is commonly adopted to obtain information about individuals' statuses, but is limited by the participants' receptivity to assessment prompts. This study explores the feasibility of participants in such studies recruiting their peers to help report their locations, activities, and emotions. Over a two-week period, 15 main participants and a total of 82 of their peers collaboratively provided mobile assessments. We showed that when the main participants were not receptive to assessment prompts, their peers provided the requested information in 96% of cases, with 42% of the time feeling confident in their assessments. However, the peers' levels of confidence and agreement with one another both varied by assessment-question type. Location information was provided the most confidently, but the latter was most likely to agree with the participants' own assessment. We also discuss matrices, including of agreement rate and peer numbers, that future peer-assisted mobile-assessment research should consider.