The Impact of Gratitude Journaling in the Classroom

July 10, 2025 updated by: Michael Rhoads

Exploring the Impact of Gratitude Journaling for Elementary and Middle School Students

The objective of this study is to explore the potential benefit of gratitude journaling for students in grades 6-12 and their teachers. Specifically, the investigators seek to determine if the process of gratitude journaling decreases stress, student absenteeism, and teacher burnout, while increasing gratitude, optimism, and a sense of belonging.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Does gratitude journaling decrease perceived stress in students? Does gratitude journaling reduce absenteeism in student class attendance? Does gratitude journaling increase gratitude in participants? Does gratitude journaling increase optimism in participants? Does gratitude journaling increase a sense of belonging in students? And finally, does gratitude journaling decrease teacher burnout? The investigators hypothesize the gratitude journaling process will decrease stress, student absenteeism, and teacher burnout, while increasing gratitude, optimism, and a sense of belonging in participants.

This study will utilize a pre-test post-test correlational study design. As a preliminary pilot study, the investigators seek to determine the potential benefits of gratitude journaling. For this study, Lynnie Gandola is a community partner. The journals were created by Lynnie. The journals she created were supplied to the schools "at cost" with a grant from the School of Life Foundation (schooloflifefoundation.org) as an initiative that principals in the district chose to implement this semester. These journals will be distributed to students regardless of whether or not the pre-test post-test surveys are administered. The investigators are looking to collect data from a journaling exercise that is already taking place. A letter of support from Lynnie Gandola is attached, stating that she approves the assessment of the effectiveness of the gratitude journals. Additionally, this study will use archival class attendance data. This information will be provided as aggregate data from the school districts, with all student information deidentified. For data collection with teachers, a non-randomized control group will also be utilized to compare burnout scores between teacher who did and did not participate in the gratitude journaling.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

234

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Colorado
      • Grand Junction, Colorado, United States, 81501
        • Colorado Mesa University

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child
  • Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • To be included in this study, individuals must be a student from a school district in the rocky mountain region.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • A participant would no longer be eligible for participation if their status as a student ends. Scenarios include incarceration, illegal behavior, or mental illness that requires absence or discontinued school attendance.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Treatment
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Placebo Comparator: Control (journaling without gratitude)
Behavioral: Control (journaling without gratitude)
60-Day Journaling Without a Gratitude Focus
Experimental: Experimental (gratitude journaling)
Behavioral: Experimental (Gratitude Journaling)
60-Day Gratitude Journaling With Guided Prompts

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Stress
Time Frame: From enrollment to 60-day post-test
Perceived Stress Scale. The scale has a range of scores from 0-40 with high scores indicating high stress (low scores are better outcomes).
From enrollment to 60-day post-test

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Gratitude
Time Frame: From enrollment to 60-day post-test
Gratitude Questionnaire-6. The scale has a range of scores from 6-42 with high scores indicating high gratitude (high scores are better outcomes).
From enrollment to 60-day post-test
Optimism
Time Frame: From enrollment to 60-day post-test
Life Orientation Test. The scale has a range of scores from 0-24 with high scores indicating high levels of optimism (high scores are better outcomes).
From enrollment to 60-day post-test
Belonging
Time Frame: From enrollment to 60-day post-test
General Belongingness Scale. The scale has a range of scores from 12-84 with high scores indicating high belonging (higher scores are better outcomes).
From enrollment to 60-day post-test

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Michael Rhoads

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Michael Rhoads, PhD, Colorado Mesa University

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

August 12, 2024

Primary Completion (Actual)

December 13, 2024

Study Completion (Actual)

December 13, 2024

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

July 2, 2025

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

July 2, 2025

First Posted (Actual)

July 11, 2025

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

July 15, 2025

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

July 10, 2025

Last Verified

July 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • ColoradoMesa

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

YES

IPD Plan Description

The anonymized data set will be uploaded to the OSF data repository.

IPD Sharing Time Frame

The IPD is currently available and will be made available as long as OSF manages the data repository.

IPD Sharing Access Criteria

The IPD is publicly available.

Study Data/Documents

  1. Individual Participant Data Set

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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