ALPHA lab – Ambulatory Assessment in Learning, Psychological Health, and Aging
The ALPHA lab brings together scientists from different subdisciplines using ambulatory assessment (also known as experience sampling method/ ecological momentary assessment), to assess variables in people’s daily lives.
Alpha Lab
Our lab utilizes ambulatory assessment via e-diaries and mobile sensors to investigate psychophysiological processes as they unfold in everyday life, thereby adding ecological validity to traditional research methods, such as cross-sectional or panel designs, or laboratory studies. Utilizing ambulatory assessment comes with several advantages: real-time assessments, which reduce the recall bias inherent in retrospective questionnaires; in-situ data collection, capturing processes in natural contexts; repeated measurements, allowing for dynamic, within-person analysis; and multimodal data, which combines self-reports with objective sensor data. We apply this versatile method across a range of research areas: Learning, Psychological Health, and Aging.
Equipment
To assess our variables of interest, we use mobile devices such as smartphones and sensor technology. We use the devices to gather information but also to provide support, when participants are most in need of it, i.e., in the sense of just in time interventions. Our equipment includes software solutions to program e-diaries (movisensXS, mpath) and besides tablets and smartphones, we also use Move4 – ECG and Activity Sensors, which record pschophysiological data and activity.