ABSTRACT
Smartphone apps are pre-loaded, pre-installed or built-in software on smartphones and software or tools that are downloaded from websites or app stores on to smartphones. They are designed to enable, facilitate and simplify tasks and/or make them more suitable for mobile use. In research, smartphone apps can be used by the researcher on their own phones to collect, record, store, analyse and visualise data, or can be installed or downloaded on participants’ phones to collect data in a wide variety of ways. There are various smartphone apps available for research purposes. These include: ethnographic apps for studies into human activity, behaviour and/or movement diary and time use data apps to record everyday behaviour, actions and thoughts and web and mobile analytics apps for the collection, analysis and reporting of web data. Researchers from a wide variety of disciplines use smartphone apps for research purposes, including adult education, psychology, the social sciences and health and medicine.
