Consumer Research Part 2 - Research Diaries

Examples of Past Research:

In Psychology:

·         Ainsworth et al (2000a) have developed and tested a logbook which is a page long per day and contains 48 items (7 resting/light; 25 moderate; 16 hard/very hard) organised as home, transport, occupation, conditioning, sports and leisure activities (intensity was not sought in the later version).  Individuals are instructed to complete the log book at the end of each day and record only activity with duration of more than 10 minutes.  This log book is less burdensome than others.  Correlations with accelerometry were moderate and ranged from 0.26-0.54 depending on the comparisons. 

·         Diaries produce more detailed information i.e. types of activity, intensity and patterns, than logs but are more burdensome for individuals to complete and the data are more complex to reduce and enter.  The recent development of palm-top personal digital assistants has enabled this electronic medium to be utilised for the collection of physical activity data by a diary method (Mathews, 2002). 

There is a concern that keeping a diary or log book of activity will cause individuals to change (increase) their physical activity i.e. a reactivity effect. 

For personal research:

Recording my mood and activity every 15 minutes

This week I’ll be recording my mood current emotion and activity every 15 minutes. I hope to accumulate feedback (from myself) on the activities I partake in.

This coming month’s (February) theme for 1week1project is self-awareness. One way to gain insight is to be able to reflect on what is going on in my life. However, I find it difficult to find time or, really, to remember to do undertake this effort. So I am going to record my observations of:

1.      what I am doing

2.      how I feel (or felt) about it.

Recording these data points provides two initial benefits. The first is that it is, in and of itself, a reflection. By recording what I have done for the past 15 minutes I have to recall those activities. It is a catalyst for contemplation in action.

The second benefit is that I can figure out how I got to a particular mood emotion or activity. If I am feeling pissed off towards the end of the work day, was it because of something that came up towards the end of the day (when I am like to be more irritable) or was there something earlier?

So, how am I going to record this? Initially I will set a timer on my computer to go off every 15 minutes. However, I would like to have a more automated service that actually prompts and records my response via text message.

Ended up being more about emotions, however is a good insight into how people feel about recording every 15minutes.

http://toolkit.s24.net/documents/en/Dia/Diaries_and_logs_Active_Living_Research.pdf

Examples of Research Diary Formats: http://toolkit.s24.net/documents/en/Dia/Diaries_and_logs_Active_Living_Research.pdf

http://toolkit.s24.net/documents/en/Dia/Diaries_and_logs_Active_Living_Research.pdf

Very primitive in format, could not find any examples of apps/online logs.

Charlotte