A practical guide and empirical example for implementing ecological momentary assessment in sport psychology research with athletes.

Abstract

Assessment (EMA) is a real-time data capture strategy designed to repeatedly and intensively sample a phenomenon of interest in the context of everyday life. EMA approaches are increasingly being used to study human behavior in psychology, public health, and related disciplines; however, its use with competitive athletes has been somewhat limited despite its promise for answering novel questions in applied sport psychology. In this article, we provide sport psychology scholars with a practical guide for implementing EMA in research with athletes. Specifically, our purpose is to (a) provide a general overview of EMA; (b) present an empirical example to illustrate how EMA can be used to better understand the etiology and consequences of athlete behavior and performance; (c) discuss challenges of conducting EMA research with athletes; and (d) recommend strategies for designing, implementing, and reporting EMA studies. Incorporating EMA approaches in sport psychology research can promote refinement of theory and inform the development of adaptive interventions that integrate new technology and real-time personalized feedback to athletes.

Associations Between Social Cognitive Determinants and Movement-Related Behaviors in Studies Using Ecological Momentary Assessment Methods: Systematic Review

“…The analytic sample size of each study ranged from 7 to 198 participants, with a mean sample size of 90.05 (SD 50.70). All articles except for the one by Reifsteck et al [ 52 ] (23/24, 96%) reported on studies with samples in which at least 50% of the participants identified as women. The samples reported in 21% (5/24) of the articles were college or university students [ 52 , 55 , 62 , 63 , 66 ].…”

“…Of the 14 articles categorized as reporting on studies that assessed self-efficacy [ 57 , 58 ], 2 (14%) operationalized their construct of interest as perceived behavioral control; however, perceived behavioral control is generally considered synonymous with self-efficacy [ 9 , 69 ], so the findings were combined into 1 category for this review. Other social cognitive determinants assessed included planning (4/24, 17%) [ 52 , 54 , 59 , 65 ], outcome expectations (3/24, 12%) [ 47 , 49 , 66 ], barriers (2/24, 8%) [ 53 , 61 ], and explicit attitudes (1/24, 4%) [ 58 ].…”

“…Among the self-reported measures of movement-related behaviors, the studies reported in 25% (6/24) of the articles adapted items from existing validated measures, including the International Physical Activity Questionnaire–Short Form by Sjöström et al [ 63 , 65 ], Godin Leisure-Time Exercise Questionnaire by Godin and Shephard [ 52 , 54 , 61 ], and a measure of sedentary time in older adults developed by Gardiner et al [ 65 ]. Other assessments of daily movement-related behaviors included checklists in which participants indicated the activities they had participated in that day and for how long [ 56 , 64 ].…”

“…Of those 6 articles, 3 (50%) focused on direct relationships between momentary intentions and subsequent PA. Among college student athletes, Reifsteck et al [ 52 ] documented a positive association between intentions and behavior such that, on occasions when participants reported stronger-than-usual intentions, they engaged in more device-based MVPA over the following 3 hours. Similarly, Arigo et al [ 45 ] found a weak positive association between the number of intended minutes and minutes of device-based MVPA over the following 3 hours among adults, although the results were not significant.…”

“…Conversely, both Pickering et al [ 49 ] and Reifsteck et al [ 52 ] found null associations between momentary self-efficacy and subsequent device-based MVPA among adults and college student athletes, respectively. Pickering et al [ 49 ] did find that momentary intentions moderated momentary self-efficacy–​behavior relationships such that, on occasions when adults had stronger intentions to engage in PA than usual, momentary self-efficacy was positively associated with subsequent MVPA.…”