Modifying an Experience Sampling Method Form to Explore Well-Being within Graduate Students

In recent years, there have been many calls to improve the well-being of graduate students. A recent review showed that only around 60% of first-year students will go on to receive their doctorates, and some of this departure could be due to low well-being and high stressors. The Experience Sampling Method (ESM) is a technique used to gather real-time data on the experiences of participants. We plan to adapt a mixed-methods approach, combining the Experience Sampling Method with daily journal prompts, to explore how momentary well-being fluctuates across the day for physics graduate students. The aim of this work is to explore the ways in which student well-being interacts with graduate physics programs to understand what aspects are heightening and lowering well-being. Understanding how momentary well-being shifts throughout the day for students could help shape supports for graduate students at various levels, guide program reform, and increase student retention. Here, we present our conceptualization of well-being and discuss how this aligns with using the ESM and daily journal prompts to explore graduate student experiences in real time.