Eeske van Roekel en Joran Jongerling

How are you really doing? TESC center of expertise is striving for tailor made treatment methods

Science Works 4 min. Femke Trommels

A broken coffee maker, a tiff with your partner, or a sudden windfall. All kinds of small things affect your mood throughout the day. This can obscure your view of how you are really doing. “More insight into these brief moments and the patterns they form can be valuable if you are receiving counselling and it can even have a preventive effect,” say Eeske van Roekel and Joran Jongerling. They run the Tilburg Experience Sampling Center TESC. “Our research contributes to us being able to better help people, exactly at the moment that they need that help.”

With an innovative research method called experience sampling, it is possible to determine very precisely what intervention works best for an individual at a certain moment. That experience sampling has really taken off in medical and clinical psychology therefore did not come as a surprise to statistician Joran Jongerling: “We already knew that the average patient does not exist. Context is everything as regards someone’s mood. The impact can be great if you receive an intervention precisely at the moment that you need it.”

Eeske van Roekel

Experience sampling is intensive for participants, but the reward is getting valuable feedback and gaining self-understanding, and they feel they are being taken seriously

Developmental psychologist Eeske van Roekel

Stack of notebooks

Developmental psychologist Eeske van Roekel agrees: “In clinical practice, it has been clear to us for quite some time that the ‘one size fits all’ approach does not always reflect patients’ realities. Technology has accelerated the process of experience sampling. At first, people were given a programmed watch that beeped every now and then when they had to complete a questionnaire in a notebook. When it was time for the next session, the patient returned to the therapist with a stack of notebooks. A lot of work and a lot of hassle. Now, data are collected via apps and smartwatches, but also by means of sensors that, for instance, make a short sound recording of your surroundings. That is how we map a person’s context. It is quite intensive for participants, but the reward is personal feedback and self-understanding. That’s a great motivation.

We did investigate whether the method is not too burdensome, for instance, for participants who are seriously ill. It proved not to be the case: people feel they are being taken seriously. They are listened to and they benefit immediately. It would be nice if participants had to provide even less input in the future, if we can collect an abundance of data with as little effort as possible.”

Coordinated collaboration among different researchers is necessary, but it also makes the work a lot more fun

Statistician Joran Jongerling

Joran Jongerling

International trailblazer

Although the experience sampling method is not new in the world, Tilburg University is the first international trailblazer because of its novel approach. “The structural connection among researchers from different disciplines is quite unique,” Joran explains. “Researchers look at a particular problem from different perspectives and collaborate intensively. It was a very conscious choice to get different experts and methodologists to work together. We need each other. Expert researchers give meaning to the statistical data. Conversely, the subject matter experts benefit from the technical perspective. This coordinated collaboration, to advance research, strengthen each other and continue to learn together, that is cutting edge, also internationally. And it just makes the work a lot more fun. You hear and learn so much. I’m really thrilled about it.” 

The promise this research holds is that we can intervene at the moment that people really need something

Eeske van Roekel

Positive emotions

TESC’s approach makes for better research, but what practical results does it achieve? “There are so many fine examples of its impact,” Eeske says. “For instance, in the field of strengthening positive emotions. We try to send participants – in this case students – an exercise at the moment that they indicate having few positive emotions. Participants can then snap out of that brooding mood and get to work on feeling better. This has a preventive effect: you prevent a small problem from spiralling out of control. There are only few other studies that really intervene in a particular moment. That is the promise this research holds: for individuals, but also for clinical practice. It can help with preventive intervention when there is a risk, for example, of relapse into depression or psychosis.”

There are a lot of apps for downtime, mindfulness, and meditation, but often it has not been scientifically proven that they really work

Eeske van Roekel

Ivory tower

Eeske: “Of course new methods are not going to make therapists redundant. Our objective is to help clinical practice and to offer valuable and enriching input in addition to the classical treatment methods. This new approach also ties in developments in healthcare with the popularity of self-monitoring and self-care initiatives. Smartwatches keep track of how you much exercise you take throughout the day and there are a lot of apps for downtime, mindfulness, and meditation. However, they have often not been evaluated or are not based on scientific research. It would be nice if our research can show that this is something that is effective as well as evidence-based. That is what makes it so interesting for me. It isn’t about issuing a bunch of questionnaires from your ivory tower. Our study is socially relevant and can have direct impact. It gives me a feeling that I’m working towards something that can really help people.”

Super computers have recently been purchased for TESC members to process the enormous amounts of data yielded by our research

Joran Jongerling

Super computer

TESC started out from the idea to connect researchers in the field of psychology and statistics. That network is now up and running. What are the next steps?  Joran: “We want to deploy and expand our expertise as efficiently as possible, so we focus on a good infrastructure and on facilitating the scientists involved. For instance, we have purchased several super computers for TESC members. Our type of research yields enormous amounts of data. If you only had an ordinary computer at your disposal, processing them would easily cost you more than three months. We also offer centralized procurement of apps and we play a role in coordinating the studies involving wearables within the university. Finally, we are working on developing skills in this relatively young research field, for instance, through courses in the field of data analysis and research design.”

Eeske: “We are also working to more widely showcase our knowledge and experience, for instance, by admitting external researchers to our workshops, sharing expertise in the context of open science. That is working: people from the Netherlands as well as abroad approach us with all kinds of questions. This shows that those years of experience and accumulated expertise are bearing fruit.”

About Tilburg Experience Sampling Center TESC

Within the Tilburg Experience Sampling Center TESC, a large group of researchers from different disciplines in the social sciences has been involved in experience sampling for a number of years now. As part of this research method, participants are asked questions at multiple times during the day or data are collected from wearable sensors. The objective is to get a better idea of what intervention works best when for whom. TESC is unique within the Netherlands and beyond because of the structural multidisciplinary collaboration and the combination of expertise in the field of psychology and statistics. Within TESC, research into mental wellbeing is conducted among diverse populations, ranging from people living with cancer to students and forensic populations. Everyone with a smartphone can participate in this type of research. For more information, go to https://experiencesampling.nl/

Date of publication: 4 April 2023