# Advancing the Science and Practice of Ecological Momentary Assessment

> **NIH NIH R37** · UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA · 2021 · $1,082,781

## Abstract

Advancing the Science and Practice of Ecological Momentary Assessment
PROJECT SUMMARY
This proposal is submitted in response to the program announcement PAR-16-260, “Methodology and Measurement in
the Social and Behavioral Sciences,” with the specific goal of improving measurement in real-time data capture of
experiences. Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) is a family of techniques for repeatedly capturing self-reports
while people go about their everyday lives, and is particularly useful for assessing subjective states. It aims to achieve
accurate and granular measurement of symptoms, well-being, affect, beliefs, and the social and physical environment
over time in natural contexts. Although EMA methods are widely used in behavioral, social, and medical research, there
are critical gaps in our understanding that must be resolved for EMA methods to be optimally understood and applied.
This proposal examines five issues to provide necessary conceptual information about EMA and practical tools for
conducting rigorous, high-quality, and replicable EMA studies; it employs several novel approaches for achieving these
goals. The main issues to be investigated include: understanding how respondents interpret and answer momentary
questions by conducting real-time, qualitative interviews; determining how various EMA protocol factors (e.g., length of
assessment, number of days of assessments) impact selection bias of respondents and influence momentary compliance,
and the development of a tool for efficiently evaluating the impact of particular designs; testing a model for a new
generation of EMA measurement tools using modern psychometric principles (Item Response Theory), and evaluating
the possibility of computerized adaptive tests for EMA; examining a core feature of EMA – that EMA reports are less
biased than recall reports – by comparing both types of self-reports with an objective standard; and, finally,
experimentally examining factors that have been hypothesized to bias EMA reporting, based on the idea that the act of
self-monitoring and reporting may influence the nature of reports (i.e., measurement reactivity).

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9971415
- **Project number:** 5R37AG057685-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
- **Principal Investigator:** Arthur A Stone
- **Activity code:** R37 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $1,082,781
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-08-01 → 2024-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9971415

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9971415, Advancing the Science and Practice of Ecological Momentary Assessment (5R37AG057685-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9971415. Licensed CC0.

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