The Hong Kong-based Prudence Foundation has engaged CCT in research and media design to provide a digital strategy for adapting their Cha-Ching financial literacy program for online learning. Cha-Ching was developed in collaboration with Dr. Alice Wilder and was produced by Cartoon Network for children ages 7 to 12. At its core, Cha-Ching consists of a series of three-minute music videos featuring a musical group of six lively characters to help children learn about the fundamental money management concepts of Earn, Save, Spend, and Donate. More recently, Prudence collaborated with Junior Achievement Asia to create an activity-based classroom curriculum with lesson plans that expand upon those main themes.

In the first phase of this project, CCT researchers and instructional designers analyzed all existing Cha-Ching media and related formal and informal instructional materials. This analysis was the basis for a prototype design that was tested with a small number of children and parents in the U.S., Africa, and Asia.  Based on the results of that formative research, CCT devised a strategy for creating an online learning game that would engage children ages 8 to 10 in playful exploration of core Cha-Ching financial literacy topics.

Based on CCT's recommendations, Prudence has now embarked on the development of a Web-based application that will be launched in late 2021.  During this development phase, we will provide instructional design oversight to the game developer and, upon completion, we will conduct an efficacy study on a pre-release version of the game.