MyLifeLogger

This app has been designed for a study at the University of Cambridge. The study will investigate wellbeing and daily activities of first-year undergraduate students.





What do I have to do?
Please go about your day as you usually would while using the app. Three times per day, the app will ask you about your mood. Please reply to these notifications promptly. This app also ambiently collects sensor data such as your activity levels (as measured by the accelerometer in your phone) and your location. At the end of each day, please enter the activities you engaged in during the day. Taking part is of course entirely voluntary - Refusal or withdrawal will involve no penalty, now or in the future.





Are there possible disadvantages and/or risks in taking part?
No particular discomfort or inconvenience should arise from answering the surveys. Participation is completely voluntary and you can opt out of the study at any time.¬ If there are survey questions you do not want to answer, you need not answer them, and if you decide to withdraw from the study you are free to do so at any time.
Although students may experience feelings of stress or anxiety when going through the process of adjusting to university, none of the measures we plan to use in the study are clinically valid measures for diagnosing e.g. clinical depression or anxiety disorders. Thus, assessments of potential mental illnesses cannot be made - especially not in real time as analysis of the data will follow after collection has been completed.
If you do not feel well please seek support. For example, you can contact the university counselling service [1], or take advantage of the NHS services [2]. If you feel stressed, consider speaking to your College tutor or nurse, GP, or Director of Studies.
[1] http://www.counselling.cam.ac.uk/studentcouns
[2] http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Counselling/Pages/Introduction.aspx
What are the possible benefits of taking part?
There are no intended benefits to the participant from taking part in the project. However, past participants enjoyed the introspective aspect of answering the surveys and receiving feedback on their data.





Will my taking part in this project be kept confidential?
As soon as data collection is completed, the data will be stripped of all identifying information (email addresses) and be identified only by an anonymous code. All data will at all times be kept in a locked file or secure computer with access only by the immediate research team.





What will happen to the results of the research project?
Results will be presented at conferences and written up in journals. Results are normally presented in terms of groups of individuals. If any individual data are presented, the data will be totally anonymous, without any means of identifying the individuals involved. The data collected during the course of the project might be used for additional or subsequent research.





Who is organising and funding the research?
The Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge is sponsoring the research.





Ethical review of the study
The project has received ethical approval from the Psychology Research Ethics Committee of the University of Cambridge.





Contact for further information
Please contact Sandrine Müller at srm77@cam.ac.uk with any questions.