Tracking everyday emotional experiences in university students with the Distinct Mood Assessment questionnaire

Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) has become a central method for studying emotional experiences in daily life. However, the need to keep EMA surveys brief to enhance participant engagement limits their ability to capture diverse emotional states. This exploratory study introduces the Distinct Mood Assessment (DMA), an alternative approach that measures a broad range of emotions. Participants select from 26 mood adjectives and rate their intensity, allowing for nuanced emotion tracking while minimizing survey length. Using a sample of 152 university students, we examined the feasibility of the DMA, exploring its acceptability, emotional variety, ability to capture distinct emotional states, and effectiveness in tracking emotional changes during a 28-day examination period. Results showed high compliance (72.8%), with participants completing the DMA in under 45 seconds, and reporting on all emotions across its full scale. However, the frequency with which an emotion was reported varied widely across participants. Therefore, emotions reported did not cluster reliably into broader constructs and individual emotions should be analyzed separately. The DMA proved effective in monitoring emotional responses to academic stress, highlighting both individual variability and common trends. These findings emphasize the importance of considering individual differences in emotional resilience and vulnerability, which could inform future interventions aimed at enhancing student well-being.