Table I.

A Comparison of Three Methods: Survey, Experience Sampling, and the EAR

Method aspect	Survey	Experience sampling	EAR
Approach	Efficiency oriented	Ecologically oriented	Ecologically oriented
Medium	Paper and pencil, electronic	Paper and pencil, electronic	Electronic
Mode	Active (data provided through voluntary response)	Active (data provided through voluntary response)	Passive (data collected through automatic recording)
Method	Global self-report	Momentary self-report	Behavioral observation
Perspective	Self (agent)	Self (agent)	Other (observer)
Awareness of assessment	High	High	Low after habituation
Burden for participant	Practical (time to participate)	Practical (interruption of daily life)	Psychological (intrusion of privacy)
Burden for researcher	Minimal	Preparing participants (instruction and training)	Preparing the sound data (coding and transcribing)
Data collection limited by	Retrospection, impression management, self-insight	Response burden, impression management, self-insight	Privacy considerations, self-censoring, laboratory capacity for data coding
Optimized for assessment of	Subjective beliefs and personal self-concept	Subjective experiences and perceptions	Objective social environments and interactions
Child-friendliness	Challenging for some children, depending on age and abilities	Challenging for some children, depending on age and abilities	Young children and children with cognitive/language limitations can wear the EAR