Convergence among treatment, prevention, and developmental intervention approaches has led to the recognition of the need for evaluation models and research designs that employ a full range of evaluation information to provide an empirical basis for enhancing the efficiency, efficacy, and effectiveness of prevention and positive development interventions. This study reports an investigation of a positive youth development program using an Outcome Mediation Cascade (OMC) evaluation model, an integrated model for evaluating the empirical intersection between intervention and developmental processes. The Changing Lives Program (CLP) is a community supported positive youth development intervention implemented in a practice setting as a selective/indicated program for multi-ethnic, multi-problem at risk youth in urban alternative high schools. This study used a Relational Data Analysis integration of quantitative and qualitative data analysis strategies, including the use of both fixed and free response measures and a structural equation modeling approach, to construct and evaluate the hypothesized OMC model. Findings indicated that the hypothesized model fit the data (χ2 (7) = 6.991, p = .43; RMSEA = .00; CFI = 1.00; WRMR = .459). Findings also provided preliminary evidence consistent with the hypothesis that in addition to having effects on targeted positive outcomes, PYD interventions are likely to have progressive cascading effects on untargeted problem outcomes that operate through effects on positive outcomes. Furthermore, the general pattern of findings suggested the need to use methods capable of capturing both quantitative and qualitative change in order to increase the likelihood of identifying more complete theory informed empirically supported models of developmental intervention change processes.

Recent intervention efforts in promoting positive identity in troubled adolescents have begun to draw on the potential for an integration of the self-construction and self-discovery perspectives in conceptualizing identity processes, as well as the integration of quantitative and qualitative data analytic strategies. This study reports an investigation of the Changing Lives Program (CLP), using an Outcome Mediation (OM) evaluation model, an integrated model for evaluating targets of intervention, while theoretically including a Self-Transformative Model of Identity Development (STM), a proposed integration of self-discovery and self-construction identity processes. This study also used a Relational Data Analysis (RDA) integration of quantitative and qualitative analysis strategies and a structural equation modeling approach (SEM), to construct and evaluate the hypothesized OM/STM model. The CLP is a community supported positive youth development intervention, targeting multi-problem youth in alternative high schools in the Miami Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS). The 259 participants for this study were drawn from the CLP’s archival data file. The model evaluated in this study utilized three indices of core identity processes (1) personal expressiveness, (2) identity conflict resolution, and (3) informational identity style that were conceptualized as mediators of the effects of participation in the CLP on change in two qualitative outcome indices of participants’ sense of self and identity. Findings indicated the model fit the data (χ2 (10) = 3.638, p = .96; RMSEA = .00; CFI = 1.00; WRMR = .299). The pattern of findings supported the utilization of the STM in conceptualizing identity processes and provided support for the OM design. The findings also suggested the need for methods capable of detecting and rendering unique sample specific free response data to increase the likelihood of identifying emergent core developmental research concepts and constructs in studies of intervention/developmental change over time in ways not possible using fixed response methods alone.