MuPsych App für Android Smartphones: Eine neue Möglichkeit für music experience sampling MuPsych App for Android smartphones: A new approach for music experience sampling

Abstract

Collecting data from everyday music consumption is a challenging task for research. A promising method that was introduced in the 1980s was the experience sampling method. Following this approach, participants were asked to write a diary about their daily live focusing on music use. At certain times during the day, those persons were asked to fill out a log or short questionnaires. With data provided from this method one could reconstruct the typical daily listening routines. However, experience sampling had some limitations like problems due to unhandy paper diaries or pagers that reminded participants of the questionnaires, and the issue of the validity of self-reports about a retrospective course of the day. A modern method that can be used promptly when a music listening session starts is the application called MuPsych for Android smartphones. This app can provide surveys directly on the personal mobile device when the reception begins and additionally collects data from all the music that the user listened to during the day. Furthermore, the app itself can provide a pool of surveys that can be answered at every time during the use of the app. Many traditionally used questionnaires from music psychology are already implemented in the app. In this article, I describe shortly the history of the experience sampling method, followed by the possibilities that MuPsych provides. Finally, I provide details on how MuPsych can be used and personalized for individual research.