This project led by Sonia Carrillo, Yvonne Gomez, and Gordon Ingram at the Universidad de los Andes seeks to create a more scalable and widely accessible version of the Expedición Gratitud intervention via its adaptation into a smartphone-based app. Expedición Gratitud is an intervention designed to promote the conceptual, emotional, and behavioral aspects of gratitude among children in Colombia.

The team previously received project-level funding from TWCF to develop and pilot the four-part intervention for 9-10 year olds in Colombia, which was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic in both public and private schools. The four parts included a curriculum training program, a parent workshop, and the Gratus app. To test the effectiveness of the intervention, evaluations were conducted through online, blended, and face-to-face methods. Results showed that all methods improved gratitude in students, with stronger effects observed in public school students.

Building on these results, and to meet the need for easier distribution of character education programs across the Latin America region, the team now seeks to develop an open-source, game-based app. They envision “Gratus 2.0: Isla de la Gratitud” as freely available for download, and as integrated into a new app-based educational intervention for schools. Using a participatory design methodology based on principles of positive design, children, parents and teachers will be involved in the design of the app at two key moments: early prototyping to define user requirements, and usability testing once an alpha version of the software is available. The project team will then evaluate the usability, acceptance of efficacy of the new intervention in Colombian schools.

Pictured: Materials from the Expedición Gratitud intervention.