The current study was undertaken as a preliminary evaluation of a qualitative extension measure for use with emerging adults. A series of studies have been previously conducted to provide evidence for the reliability and validity of the RDA framework in evaluating youth development programs (Kurtines et al., 2008) and this study furthers this research to utilize RDA with emerging adults. Building on previous RDA research, the current study analyzed psychometric properties of the Identity Dimensions of Emerging Adulthood-Qualitative Extension (IDEA-QE) using RDA. Inter-coder percent agreement among the Theoretical Open Coders (TOC) and Theoretical Content Coders (TCC) for each of the category levels was moderate to high, ranging from .67 to .87. The Fleiss’ kappa across all category levels was from moderate agreement to almost perfect agreement, ranging from .60 to .88. The correlation between the TOC and the TCC demonstrated medium to high correlation, ranging from r(31)=.65, pr(31)=.74, p<.001.

This study explores the ways in which two educated Yemeni women understand and engage with storylines in their society which position them as 'sisters of men' obliged to conform to expectations of 'good' wives, mothers, daughters and Muslims. My own long immersion in Yemeni society, and de se experience of being discursively, interactively and structurally positioned as a woman and a wife in that context created a compelling desire to explore the ascribed social identities, roles and relationships of women in Yemen. In keeping with the feminist underpinnings of this study, I used a holistic method of investigation, the life history interview, and a voice relational mode of analysis that facilitated engagement with the women and their multiple subjectivities and positionings. Findings suggest that far from understanding themselves as de facto victims of their men and their religion, these strong and outspoken characters actively and willingly embrace those storylines derived from Islam but live them in sometimes unexpected ways. I also collaborated with my storytellers in the construction of personal narratives to enable readers to understand a little more about the world that these women inhabit, and help transform "information into shared experience" (Denzin 2009: 216). This study makes conceptual, methodological, practical and political contributions and suggests areas for further research.

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.