Division of Psychological Methodology
The Division
The division is dedicated to new research methods that have emerged and will emerge as a result of the development of the computer and the introduction of the Internet.
- Ambulatory Assessment with smartphones
- Research about online social media
- Development of new data collection techniques such as using wearables
- Analysis of metadata/paradata
- Research about consequences of mobile/digital communication (e.g., addiction, loss of privacy)
The Division of Psychological Methodology supports the Open Science movement. This implies systematic reviews (meta-analyses), power analyses, participation in multi-site studies, preregistration, open data, open material, and so forth.
The science application ESMira was specially developed at the Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences (KL) for scientific ESM studies and is improved regularly. The app was developed to fulfil scientific requirements such as the presentation of an informed consent, data security (data is transferred via encryption to the KL server), and anonymity (randomized participant number). Furthermore, ESMira does not evaluate any personal information (e.g. telephone number) or personal settings of the smartphone.
Although psychological research is not only scientifically but increasingly also socially relevant (for example, increase in anxiety disorders), it is unfortunately all the more difficult to recruit subjects for studies. Especially longitudinal studies (therefore repeated measurement in the everyday life of the test person) can often only be realized with increased effort, although they have a substantial added value - compared to classical one-time cross-sectional studies (therefore one-time completion of a questionnaire).
