Illene C. Noppe, Lloyd D. Noppe, & Megan Horne

Human Development

Using Electronic Sampling Method to Assess Adolescents’ Experiences, Emotions and Thoughts While Grieving

Although there is a growing literature on the adolescent bereavement experience we still do not know how grieving adolescents cope as they negotiate their daily lives of school, peer interactions, jobs and extracurricular activities.

This study is designed to present a more complete picture of the adolescent’s grief experience using The Experience Sampling Method. Colloquially known as “beeper technology,” ESM simply involves paging the study participants during random intervals; usually they are signaled 5 – 7 times per day. The signal cues participants to fill out a form (the Experience-Sampling Form) that assesses their activities and psychological state at that moment. The study of the grief experience using this methodology has largely been neglected.

In our study, we plan to give handheld computers to 45 high school students, 30 of whom have suffered the loss of a significant person. The computers will be programmed with ESM questionnaires, and a measure of continuing bonds. Participants would be signaled at random intervals for one week.

We are anticipating that this study will help us to learn how adolescent grief is affected by situational context, and what adolescents are feeling as well as experiencing at the moment as they negotiate their way through loss. In addition, we may be able to identify sources of support and resilience that foster growth and coping during a time when the issues of the age and the grief experience itself can synthesize into a particularly difficult adjustment period.