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{{Stub}} ''Not to be confused with ''[[Personal Science (book)|Personal Science]]'', the book by Gary Wolf.''

'''Personal science''' is a term that describes research that is conducted from a first person perspective and in which the researcher is also the subject of research. Most personal science projects are done independently and occur at individual and more rarely collective scales ("I" or "we"). Importantly, the conceptualization and conduct of projects comes from the individuals that are studied. The involvement of institutional support and professional scientists (e.g. academics) is limited and often entirely absent.

== History ==
The term "personal science" was originally coined by [[Seth Roberts]], a prolific self-experimenter and academic researcher, in 2012<ref>Roberts, Seth. (2012). The Growth of Personal Science: Implications for Statistics. 61.</ref>. Starting from this, the term spread within the [[Quantified Self]] and broader self-research communities. Subsequently, [[Gary Wolf]] and [[Martijn de Groot]] conceptualized personal science as a type of "N-of-1 research"<ref>De Groot, M., Drangsholt, M., Martin-Sanchez, F., & Wolf, G. (2017). Single Subject (N-of-1) Research Design, Data Processing, and Personal Science. Methods of Information in Medicine, 56(06), 416–418. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.3414/ME17-03-0001</nowiki></ref> and defined personal science the practice of individuals using empirical methods to answer questions related to their own lives, typically related to individual's well-being or health<ref>Wolf, G. I., & De Groot, M. (2020). A Conceptual Framework for Personal Science. Frontiers in Computer Science, 2. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomp.2020.00021</nowiki></ref>.

=== Relationship to citizen science ===
Personal science can be understood as a form of "citizen science" (the practice of research conducted totally or in part by non-professional scientists) which typically occurs almost entirely outside traditional research institutions<ref>Heyen, N. B., & Dickel, S. (2019). Was ist Personal Health Science? In N. B. Heyen, S. Dickel, & A. Brüninghaus (Eds.), Personal Health Science: Persönliches Gesundheitswissen zwischen Selbstsorge und Bürgerforschung (pp. 1–19). Springer Fachmedien. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-16428-7_1</nowiki></ref>. While not a requirement for engaging in personal science, many practitioners of personal science come from academia and adjacent fields (research industry, technology, medicine) and engage in re-using their skills in research and technology to investigate personally relevant questions. Due to the highly individual and non-institutional nature of personal science, knowledge sharing amongst practitioners has been historically limited and ad-hoc<ref>Heyen, N. B. (2020). From self-tracking to self-expertise: The production of self-related knowledge by doing personal science. Public Understanding of Science, 29(2), 124–138. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662519888757</nowiki></ref>.

== Examples of personal science ==
Many personal science projects investigate the [[Tracking my Son's Diabetes|management of a chronic condition or disease]], but examples also include investigating [[Quantifying The Effects Of Microaggressions|the effects of microaggressions]] or [[Using Heart Rate Variability to Analyze Stress in Conversation|understanding stress during conversations]]. The categories [[:Category:Projects|Projects]] and [[:Category:Show and Tell|Show & Tell]] contain a large number of example projects across these topics.

== References ==
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[[Category:Topics]]