Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA), Mobile Crowdsensing (MCS), and their Combination: A Systematic Review and Analysis

With mobile devices having become a central part of our daily life, the question arises how we can use smartphones and wearable devices to resolve issues we face. Therefore, researchers used smartphones to assess their subjects’ state remotely in form of an ecological momentary assessment (EMA). To collect a larger amount of data or understand their subjects more deeply the researchers can not only use their subjects’ inputs but also a sensor adjacent to them as part of Mobile Crowd Sensing (MCS) approach. In the context of this master thesis we therefore explore how researches adopted the topic of MCS in the context of EMA through a systematic literature review. We found that most studies do not use the additional information provided by sensors in their study design. Additionally, studies showed similar characteristics regarding the assessment strategy with many of them being focused on self-assessments. As a result we identified potential opportunities to diversify our knowledge regarding the adoption of EMA and MCS.