Dr Belén Mesurado, associate researcher of the Institute of Philosophy, Dr Claudia Vanney, director of the Institute of Philosophy, and Dr Gabriela Robiolo presented the paper titled “Usability study and perception of effectiveness of the modules that make up the Hero program”, at the biennial meeting of the Asociación Argentina de Ciencias del Comportamiento (Argentine Association of Behavioral Sciences) held on the city of Misiones, Argentina from the 28 to the 30th of August 2019. The meeting gathers psychologists from Latin-American interested in the study of different psychological topics.

Here you can read the abstract:

Information and Communication Technologies (ITC) have brought about major changes in countless areas, as they have allowed for the inclusion of technology in education and have created new labor methodologies. In this context, Mesurado et al. (2018) have developed the online program Hero, the first web application aimed at promoting prosocial behavior and socio-emotional variables among adolescents. Given that the Hero program is new, investigating its usability is of great interest. Thus, the aims of this article are 1) To study users’ perception of the effectiveness of each of the Hero program modules in the promotion of prosocial behavior, empathy, gratitude, forgiveness, and satisfaction; and 2) To analyze the users’ opinions on the general characteristics of the program by identifying which activities they liked best and those which they did not like. The sample included 158 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 (M = 14.90; DE = 1.58, 54% women), from a middle socioeconomic status. The results indicate that there is an irregular but progressive growth in all variables promoted by the Hero program. Moreover, the program was highly acceptable to the adolescents who participated in the intervention.