A Usability Study of Physiological Measurement in School Using Wearable Sensors

Abstract

Measuring psychophysiological signals of adolescents using unobtrusive wearable sensors may contribute to understanding the development of emotional disorders. This study investigated the feasibility of measuring high quality physiological data and examined the validity of signal processing in a school setting. Among 86 adolescents, a total of more than 410 h of electrodermal activity (EDA) data were recorded using a wrist-worn sensor with gelled electrodes and over 370 h of heart rate data were recorded using a chest-strap sensor. The results support the feasibility of monitoring physiological signals at school. We describe specific challenges and provide recommendations for signal analysis, including dealing with invalid signals due to loose sensors, and quantization noise that can be caused by limitations in analog-to-digital conversion in wearable devices and be mistaken as physiological responses. Importantly, our results show that using toolboxes for automatic signal preprocessing, decomposition, and artifact detection with default parameters while neglecting differences between devices and measurement contexts yield misleading results. Time courses of students’ physiological signals throughout the course of a class were found to be clearer after applying our proposed preprocessing steps.

Detecting Emotions through Electrodermal Activity in Learning Contexts: A Systematic Review

“…Normalization of the EDA signal can also be done by using a baseline to correct for variation between individuals ( n = 13) [ 12 , 30 ]. In the literature, the tonic component of EDA is referred to as the baseline as well [ 3 , 35 ], but here we discuss the specific measurement of a baseline.…”

“…Previous research has recognized EDA as a reliable identifier of physiological arousal [ 12 ]. There is a substantial increase in the usability and accessibility of devices that measure EDA [ 3 , 30 ], and wearable technologies provide more opportunities to measure EDA in real-world settings [ 4 , 31 ]. EDA holds promise for measuring arousal during learning, as it represents a close to real-time activation that can possibly be linked to cognitive and emotional responses on a detailed basis [ 3 , 27 , 32 ].…”

Integrating Cognitive Developmental Neuroscience in Society: Lessons Learned From a Multidisciplinary Research Project on Education and Social Safety of Youth

“…In addition, the tools should be tested to confirm that they are reliable to be used in practice. In the current project, for example, we were able to test wearable devices that measured heart rate and skin conductance in school settings ( Thammasan et al, 2020 ; Stuldreher et al, 2021 ). This allowed us to test the reliability of these measurements compared to laboratory settings and equipment ( evaluation ).…”

Control Dimensions of Media Task-Switching and Emotional Well-being

“…The measurement is highly precise on a single device but cannot yet measure the full scope of mediated activities that occur on multiple devices. In a laboratory environment, physiological measures of heartrate and skin conductance can be collected, but even the most modern sensors fail to capture accurate physiological data in natural settings for periods of time beyond a few hours (Labonte- LeMoyne et al, 2018;Thammasan et al, 2020). To capture effects of media use over the course of several days, psychological measures are the only viable option.…”