From Burden to Enjoyment: A User-Centered Approach to Engage Adolescents in Intensive Longitudinal Research

Background

The emergence of modern technologies has empowered researchers to delve into the intricacies of adolescents’ daily thoughts, behaviors, and emotions through intensive data collection methods, such as diaries and experience sampling methods. However, the potential of these methods to obtain real-time insights hinges almost entirely on adolescents’ willingness to provide self-reports over an extended period in their daily lives. Participants might perceive the repetitive self‐reporting in these data collection techniques as burdensome and demotivating, resulting in decreased compliance rates. In our reserach, we have shifted our perspective from this researcher-centered approach (“What do participants have to do to meet the researchers’ standards?”) to a user-centered approach (“What do researchers need to do to meet the participants’ standards?”), prioritizing participants’ needs and motivations.

Method

In three major research projects that took place between 2019 and 2023, more than 4,000 Dutch adolescents participated (12–25 years old). To improve the participants’ user journey, adolescents were not only invited to participate in our ESM and daily diary research but also to contribute as experts, leveraging their unique lived experiences. They shared their expertise in interviews (n = 459), focus groups (n = 101), design decisions (i.e., A/B tests, n = 107), pilots (n = 163), exit interviews (n = 167), and by answering user experience questionnaires (n = 2,109).

Results

Across projects, we discovered five different main intrinsic and extrinsic motives to participate in intensive longitudinal studies. Adolescents were not only driven by (1) the (monetary) reward but also by motives such as (2) participating for fun or personal interest, (3) helping science or the greater good, (4) helping an individual scientist or others, and (5) gaining self-insight. We provide concrete examples of how we tailored our study designs to address these specific motives to optimize youth engagement. We for example have (1) rewarded participants with money or gaining points, (2) made participation fun with memes or fun dilemmas, (3) emphasized scientific contributions with badges, (4) built a personal relationship with participants, and (5) gave personalized feedback to improve self-insight.

Conclusion

The engagement of adolescents in intensive longitudinal studies can be enhanced by making it a meaningful and enjoyable experience, aligned with their own motives. We observed that adolescents possess different combination of motives. Therefore, an approach that addresses multiple motives is crucial in motivating adolescents. Our work has provided a foundation for how adolescents’ user experience can guide the design of intensive longitudinal studies, paving the way for greater effectiveness and impact in future research endeavors.