Introduction and objective: Psychotherapy efficacy and effectiveness are traditionally assessed using pre-post symptom reports, which often fail to capture the dynamic nature of therapeutic change and may overlook individual patterns of interaction between symptoms and psychological processes. Experience sampling methods (ESM), encompassing daily diaries, ecological momentary assessment (EMA), and ambulatory assessment via wearable devices, address this limitation by collecting real-time, in-situ data on symptoms and psychological processes through mobile technologies. This approach enables the development of personalised models of patient functioning and dynamically tracks changes during psychotherapy, offering a more nuanced understanding of treatment mechanisms. Despite increasing recommendations for their use in clinical practice and exponential growth in access to technology, ESM remains relatively underutilised in evaluating psychotherapy efficacy and effectiveness. Materials and methods: This paper provides a narrative review exploring the opportunities and challenges of using ESM to assess psychotherapy effectiveness and efficacy. Results: ESM is shown to complement, rather than replace, traditional methods by capturing dynamic changes and contextual factors, recognising that retrospective self-reported questionnaires and ESM data do not always measure the same aspects of a given psychological process. The review outlines key areas, including an overview of ESM methodologies, the rationale for their use in psychotherapy evaluation, user experience and methodological challenges (e.g. compliance, UX, Open Science principles, and participatory approaches), data structure and analytical approaches (such as multilevel and network models), and ethical considerations related to ESM. Conclusions: Practical recommendations for integrating ESM into psychotherapy research are presented, drawing on general ESM guidelines (e.g. Löchner et al., 2025) and the findings of this review.
Disproportionate rates of sexual violence occur among university students, with rape culture and misconceptions about consentprevalent. To comprehensively examine rape myth beliefs among different student groups, 417 UK University students enrolledon courses in four distinct disciplinary areas; social sciences (n = 131), applied sciences (n = 101), business and law (n = 96) andarts and humanities (n = 89), completed the Acceptance of Modern Myths about Sexual Aggression (AMMSA) scale. Differencesin AMMSA scores (small to very large) were observed between students across all disciplinary groupings, with applied scienceand business and law students scoring highest in rape myth beliefs. Demographic and victimisation differences were alsoobserved; male students, BAME students and students without direct exposure to sexual victimisation, expressed greater rapemyth acceptance scores. Regression revealed that gender, ethnicity, students' stage of study, deficits in affective empathy andhaving a friend or family member that had experienced sexual violence, were significant correlates of student's rape mythbeliefs. Findings have important implications for university responses to sexual violence, helping identify those students mostlikely to benefit from targeted educational interventions designed to improve understanding around consent and debunk rapestereotypes—a priority for Higher Education providers.
