Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 2010. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 159-170). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Structured sports are the most common activity in which youth participate. Research links sport participation to positive and negatives outcomes; however few studies have investigated the processes that affect positive and negative experiences. Considering that enjoyment, motivational climate, and coach behaviors are factors that are known to affect participation, it is of interest to determine if these factors can contribute to increased positive experiences for youth sport participants. Study 1 investigated the psychometric properties of the Youth Experience Survey 2.0 with a group of athletes. This instrument was originally designed to investigate experiences across a range of structured activities; however its psychometric properties had yet to be reported. Results of confirmatory factor analyses did not show strong psychometric support for the instrument. Follow-up exploratory analyses resulted in the instrument being modified and renamed the Youth Experience Survey for Sport. The revised scaled showed improved psychometric properties compared to the original instrument which makes it a preferred tool for investigation of personal development of youth sport participants. Study 2 explored the role of enjoyment and motivational climate on the personal development of team sport athletes. Stepwise multiple regression analyses were used to examine the relationships. Results demonstrated that positive experiences in sport were most strongly predicted by affiliation with peers, self-referenced competency, effort expenditure, and a task climate. Negative experiences were most strongly predicted by an ego climate and other-referenced competency. Study 3 examined differences on personal development and motivational climate for athletes in programs where coaches received positive youth development training and athletes in programs that did not provide training to coaches. Results showed that personal and social skills were higher for athletes of trained coaches. Cognitive skills and task climate did not reach significance but can be considered as marginal effects. Results from these studies provide researchers with an instrument to measure positive youth development in sport. In addition, results demonstrate that enjoyment, motivational climate, and coach training are important factors in promoting personal development. Youth sport program administrators that wish to incorporate positive development in their programs should consider these findings. / Thesis (Ph.D, Kinesiology & Health Studies) -- Queen's University, 2010-01-29 13:19:00.872

Grassroots innovation has been recognized as a valuable means to empower local communities to address developmental issues. Enabling youth in townships to solve local problems is of particular interest in South Africa due to the poor socioeconomic conditions in these areas. These conditions include high unemployment rates amongst youth, which leads to youth disenfranchisement. There is a lack of support for grassroots innovation because it falls outside of mainstream support structures for innovation. Standard market incentives are less relevant for this socially driven form of innovation. Innovation competitions are a potential alternate mechanism to incentivize grassroots innovation. However, the danger with external incentives is that they can crowd out intrinsic motivation through the overjustification effect. Intrinsic motivation is necessary to increase creativity, performance and long-term engagement in an activity. Therefore, this study seeks to understand what motivates youth to take part in grassroots innovation activities, and how to use an innovation competition to provide appropriate incentives for these motivations. A gamification framework is used to analyse these motivations and the effects of incentives. This is an empirical study that focuses on Innovate the Cape, a high school innovation competition in Cape Town. Furthermore, given that this form of innovation in this developmental context is poorly understood, the learning processes are analysed. An innovation systems approach is used to explore the motivations of the actors and analyse their interactions within this institutional context. A qualitative study was conducted with 18 semi-structured interviews and 9 focus groups. The analysis revealed that participants had a broad range of motivations beyond the competition prize, which was seen more as a means to an end. Dominant motivations included making a social impact, social influence, personal development and the desire to learn. By taking these motivations into account, competition incentives can be used as a means to empower participants through rich learning experiences. Diverse interpersonal interaction and experiential learning were found to be vital components of the learning process. These components are sorely lacking in the local school system. There is a lack of accessible and relevant formal institutional support for early stage grassroots innovation. Furthermore, informal institutional factors underpinned many of the findings on the motivations and learning processes of the participants. On a systems level, it was shown that facilitating innovative behaviour on the grassroots level resulted in institutional building.

This thesis aimed to develop an intervention to improve the life skills of British adolescent competitive sport participants, who are in full time education. Study one investigated the life skills needs of adolescent competitive sport participants and provided a participant-centred definition of life skills. The problem exists that it is unclear which life skills are needed by adolescent competitive sport participants and which life skills should be included in life skills programmes. As such, existing programmes may not reflect the needs of adolescents. The aim of this study was to examine the life skills needs of competitive adolescent sports participants from the perspective of youth sport participants, coaches, and experts in sport psychology and youth sport. Eighteen adolescent sports participants, fourteen coaches, and four experts in sport psychology and youth sport participated in a series of focus group interviews. An inductive analysis revealed how participants defined life skills and which life skills adolescent sports participants need. Life skills were defined as ranges of transferable skills needed for everyday life by everybody, that help people thrive above and beyond the normal requirements of everyday existence. Participants described the need for interpersonal skills including social skills, respect, leadership, family interactions, and communication. Personal skills including organisation, discipline, self-reliance, goal setting, managing performance outcomes, motivation, and identity were also reported. Participants described communication skills and organisation as the most important life skills for British adolescent competitive sport participants to acquire. Study two presents an in-depth, idiographic study illustrating how life skills were learnt through the experience of sport. The aim of the current study was to investigate how life skills could be learnt and improved through experiences in sport. (Continues...).

Sport is considered a viable context for positive youth development, including the acquisition of life skills. However, research indicates that sport participation alone does not necessarily amount to consistent developmental outcomes (Coakley, 2011). Therefore, it is important to understand how sport can be structured by coaches, as direct influencers of the structure and delivery of sport programs, to facilitate the development of skills that youth can use to thrive in life. Using the Bean et al. (2018) continuum, this thesis explored coaches’ implicit and explicit approaches to life skills development and transfer in youth sport. A multiple case study design was employed comprised of nine cases, each consisting of one coach and at least two of his/her athletes, who were members of a youth sport team (i.e., baseball, rugby, soccer, and sailing), operating in the National Capital Region. Data were collected from the coaches via pre- and post-season interviews and in-season journaling, as well as from athletes via post-season interviews. The results indicated that the coaches went beyond the implicit/explicit dichotomy. The coaches were found to predominantly and consistently use implicit approaches and inconsistently use explicit approaches, with dilemmas and factors reported influencing their explicit practices. The results have implications for future research and applied efforts towards coaches’ integration of the explicit approaches to teaching youth life skills development and transfer within their coaching practices to maximize positive youth development through sport.

Understanding how inputs influence program outcomes is a key step in designing and implementing quality youth programs to support positive development. While developmental processes are assumed to be universal for all populations, youth who face additional challenges in their development (such as those with chronic illness) may have unique experiences in youth programs. Using Developmental Systems Theory as the guiding theory, the purpose of this study was to understand the developmental context for youth with HIV/AIDS at a barrier-free camp. This study addressed the specific questions: (1) what were the developmental outcomes experienced by youth as a result of attending camp; and (2) what were the processes that facilitated youth development at camp? An interpretive case study employing observations, focus groups, and interviews was used to investigate the research questions. Findings show that camp plays a major developmental role in the lives of youth with HIV/AIDS. Four thematic outcomes of camp emerged: (1) experiencing caring people, (2) developing a sense of belonging, (3) feeling reprieve and recreation, and (4) increasing knowledge, attitudes, and skills. The four themes were strongly linked together, being nested within each other in a temporal order. When campers experienced caring people, they had a sense of belonging. These two relationship-based outcomes opened a space for feelings of reprieve (from responsibilities and stigma at home) and recreation (to engage in fun activities) at camp, and this relaxed space provided an opportunity for increasing knowledge, attitudes, and skills. Processes that contributed most to the campers? experiences of caring people were long-term relationships, outside of camp support, exposure and storytelling, and Teen Talk (an educational workshop). Processes contributing to campers? development of a sense of belonging were acculturation into the camp; an educational activity called Teen Talk, medication taking, grieving, aging out of camp, and storytelling. Processes contributing to campers? experiences of reprieve and recreation were camp activities (including Teen Talk); planning for the needs of campers, accessibility, and freedom from worry. Processes contributing to campers? development of knowledge, attitudes, and skills were education through Teen Talk, and non-Teen Talk education. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed.

Research in the field of developmental psychology has highlighted the importance of structured activities in providing positive experiences and outcomes for youth. In particular, youth participation in organized sport has been linked to the development of physical, motor, and psychosocial skills. Although these outcomes have been discussed in the sport psychology literature, it is not clear how positive youth development may be facilitated through sport. An ecological approach was used to examine developmental processes, personal characteristics, contextual factors, and time elements that may be linked to youth sport participation and positive development. Study 1 used a quantitative methodology to examine the relationship between developmental asset possession and youth sport outcomes such as burnout and enjoyment. Of the eight asset categories examined, four emerged as significant predictors of burnout and/or enjoyment. Specifically, positive identity, support, and empowerment were linked to burnout and positive identity, empowerment, and social competencies were linked to enjoyment. Study 2 also utilized a quantitative methodology in order to investigate differences between a group of youth sport “specializers” and a group of youth sport “samplers”. Outcomes including burnout, enjoyment, and developmental assets were compared as well as experiences in sport. The groups did not differ in developmental asset possession or in sources of enjoyment. However, “samplers” reported more experiences integrating sport, family, and community whereas “specializers” were more likely to have more experiences with diverse peer groups. The “specializers” also reported higher levels of burnout (i.e., exhaustion) relating to their sport participation. Study 3 examined the development of positive youth within a sport specialization context. Through the use of interviews with elite youth sport coaches and practice observations, four characteristics (i.e., appropriate training structure, opportunities for personal and social development, opportunities for physical and motor skill development, and the presence of supportive interactions) were developed outlining how elite sport settings can enable the development of positive youth. This line of research highlighted the key role of the sport experience in promoting positive youth development. If youth sport programs are delivered with an emphasis on skill development in conjunction with the growth of key assets and an appropriate contextual experience, young people have the potential to emerge as healthy, secure, and positive citizens who feel valued and invested within their homes and communities. / Thesis (Ph.D, Kinesiology & Health Studies) -- Queen's University, 2008-06-26 10:18:58.482

The 5Cs (competence, confidence, connection, character and caring/compassion) have been proposed as important constructs that describe the presence of positive youth development (PYD; Lerner et al., 2005). While the 5Cs are intuitively appealing, a recent study failed to provide support for the framework of the 5Cs within a sample of youth sport participants (Jones, Dunn, Holt, Sullivan, & Bloom, in press). Rather than abandoning the framework of the Cs in the youth sport setting, this finding highlights the importance of developing a sport-specific framework. In applying the 5Cs to sport, Côté, Bruner, Erickson, Strachan, and Fraser-Thomas (2010) found that competence, confidence, and connection were well represented in the sport literature, but that caring/compassion were embedded within the character literature. As a result, they collapsed the 5Cs into a 4Cs framework, which has been used in the current study. The purpose of the current study was to garner an understanding of what each of the 4Cs mean to a group of youth sport participants in the sport context. To this end, 10 single-sex focus groups were conducted with 49 youth sport participants (24 boys, 25 girls), 9 to 13 years old (M=10.8 years). The participants were involved in a variety of sports, with soccer, hockey, baseball/softball, and lacrosse being the most common. Data analyses revealed the types of information that participants use to form their perceptions of the 4Cs, along with the sources from which this information is obtained. Participants indicated that they used information from coaches, parents, peers, self-perceptions, and the sport context in creating their understanding of the 4Cs. Participants referred to obtaining information from peers regarding all 4Cs. Conversely, coaches were referenced regarding competence, confidence, and connection, but not character. Parents were not referenced by the participants in their understanding of connection or character in the sport setting. Notable findings also include the strong emphasis participants placed on their level of effort in determining their competence and confidence. Overall, results highlight the importance of providing young athletes opportunities to experience success and interact with peers in a fun and inclusive sport environment. / Thesis (Master, Kinesiology & Health Studies) -- Queen's University, 2011-06-29 11:19:29.956

The present study is a mixed-method evaluation of the delivery of sexuality education in the context of a youth development program called Cool Girls, Inc. Part one was a quasi-experimental, pre and post-test design for which 216 program participants and 92 demographically matched comparisons were surveyed on variables associated with healthy sexual decision-making. It was hypothesized that participation in the program would be associated with increases in these variables, increases in helping resources for questions about sex, and that helping resources would mediate the relationship between participation and study outcomes. Participation predicted one of the sexual efficacy items: at the trend level. Length of time in Cool Girls, Inc. significantly predicted one attitudes toward sexuality item. Helping resources at time two predicted post-test hope at the trend level. The mediation hypothesis was not tested due to the lack of findings for path b in the mediation model. Part two of the study was a qualitative process evaluation consisting of interviews with each of the program’s site coordinators. Group activities and discussion were the most common forms of delivering the sexuality education. The most common topics were relationships, the body, and sex. Site coordinators tended to express external support, but experienced some internal barriers and barriers to involving parents. It was revealed that Cool Girls, Inc. increases social capital by providing site coordinators as mentors and increasing intergenerational closure. How each part of the study informs one another, as well as limitations and future directions are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions and experiences of youth and adults engaged in youth-adult relationships involved in the Texas AgriLife Extension Service Youth Board. The objectives of the study were to: (1) examine youth perceptions of their involvement on the Youth Board; (2) examine adult perceptions of their involvement on the Youth Board; and (3) evaluate youth-adult interaction on the Youth Board. The quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-tests, and analyses of variance (ANOVA). Involvement and Interaction Rating Scales were completed by 127 participants (75 youth and 52 adults) serving on the Youth Boards in Texas. The rating scale measured three constructs: youth involvement, adult involvement, and youth-adult interaction. T-tests were used to analyze differences between youth and adult participants. Gender differences were also analyzed. The test indicated no significant difference between youth and adult participants, but youth were more positive on the youth involvement, adult involvement, and youth-adult interaction constructs. Females were more positive on all three constructs event thought there was also no significant difference in perceptions. An independent samples t-test was computed to determine if there were significant differences between Anglo and non-Anglo participants' perceptions of youth involvement, adult involvement, and youth-adult interaction. Most participants were Anglo; however, non-Anglo ethic groups including Asian, Black, Hispanic and Native American were also represented. Tests show all participants had positive perceptions toward youth involvement, adult involvement, and youth-adult interaction. Non-Anglo participants had a positive perception of youth involvement, but Anglo participants had a higher mean score on adult involvement and youth-adult interaction. An independent sample t-test was used to determine significant differences based on residence in perceptions of the three constructs between participants. Population less than 10,000 was defined as a town fewer than 10,000 populations and farm. Population greater than 10,000 is defined as town/city of 10,000-50,000 population and its suburbs, suburb of city more than 50,000 populations, or central city more than 50,000 population. No significant differences were found between population less than 10,000 and population greater than 10,000 participants but population less than 10,000 participants had a higher perception of youth involvement, adult involvement and youth-adult interaction than population greater than 10,000 participants.