The purpose of this doctoral thesis was to develop, implement and evaluate the PULSE program, a community-based physical activity and life skills program for at-risk youth. The thesis is composed of four articles. The first paper describes the rationale and development of the PULSE program which was designed to help youth develop the skills to self-regulate and successfully perform physical activity. The second article presents a process evaluation of the PULSE program. This article examines how the youth progressed through the program with regards to the five levels of the Teaching and Social Responsibility (TPSR) model, one of the frameworks on which the PULSE program is based. A second purpose of this study was to understand the youths’ perceptions of the impact of the program on these five levels. The results indicated that the program led to slight increases in the five levels of the TPSR model and the youth reported transferring the skills they learned related to the levels in their lives outside of the program. The third paper represents an outcome evaluation of the PULSE program. Results showed that youth who participated in PULSE increased their fitness, physical activity levels as well as a number of positive youth development outcomes. Finally, the fourth paper examined how the PULSE program helps support the tenets of Basic Needs Theory. The results indicated that the program successfully nurtured the three basic needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness. The overall findings suggest that the PULSE program is a practical, evidence-informed program that may help youth understand and apply life skills to be physically active as they approach adulthood, and also more generally in their lives. The current findings show promise for both Physical Activity (PA) and Positive Youth Development (PYD) outcomes but further research is needed to make causal links.

The thesis serves as an evaluation of the psychometric properties of a measure of cognitive competence used with a multi-ethnic, adolescent sample. The primary goal of this study was the development of the Critical Problem Solving Skills Scale – Qualitative Extension, using Relational Data Analysis (RDA). This study builds on previous work that has been conducted to provide evidence for the reliability and validity of the RDA framework in evaluating youth development programs (Kurtines et al., 2008). Inter-coder percent agreement among the TOC and TCC coders for each of the category levels was moderate to high, with a range of .76 to .94. The Fleiss’ kappa across all category levels was from substantial agreement to almost perfect agreement, with a range of .72 to .91. The correlation between the TOC and the TCC demonstrated medium to high correlation, with a range of r(40)=.68, p

Thesis advisor: Belle Liang / Research has documented the benefits of youth purpose (i.e., a sustained intention that facilitates engagement in activities and contributes to the world beyond oneself) (Damon, Menon, & Bronk, 2003). Youth purpose has been considered a developmental asset (Benson, 2006) and predictive of flourishing (e.g., Seligman, 2002). A sense of purpose can also serve as an important psychological resource for people experiencing adversity (e.g., Frankl, 2006). Similarly, critical consciousness (CC) has been associated with positive outcomes among youth, including improved mental health and vocational commitments (Diemer, 2009; Diemer & Li, 2011), and can help youth cope with oppression and marginalization (Diemer, Kauffman, Koenig, Trahan, & Hsieh, 2006). Given the benefits of youth purpose, additional research on how purpose develops is warranted (Liang et al., 2017a). Theoretical models of character development (e.g., Lerner & Callina, 2014) have suggested that purpose and CC develop in similar, parallel ways, though research often has not connected these two constructs explicitly. The youth purpose and CC literatures suggest that a study of the possible link between CC and purpose, whereby CC helps facilitate the development of purpose, is warranted. Therefore, this dissertation sought to expand the literature on purpose development in college students, as well as better understand if and how CC facilitates purpose development in this population. This study included 17 interviews with purposeful college students who had either relatively higher or lower levels of CC, as measured by the Critical Consciousness Scale (CCS) (Diemer, Rapa, Park, & Perry, 2017). A modified Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR) method was used to analyze the data and yielded 60 categories to describe the factors that contributed to the students’ purpose development (Hill, Thompson, & Williams, 1997). Additional analyses suggested that CC facilitated purpose development via a healing and/or directing pathway. Students were able to heal from marginalization and trauma, which was important for helping them pursue their goals; and/or they were better able to direct their prosocial motivations toward specific beneficiaries. Implications for practice are discussed. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology.

Youth mentoring has become a popular program model promoting positive youth development and outpacing available research to guide all the programmatic growth. The systemic model of mentoring (Keller, 2005) expands the traditional mentor-youth dyadic focus of program development and evaluation, taking into account other important contextual and influencing factors including the role of parents, program staff and the larger agency. However, there remains an absence of literature that examines what is known about parental involvement and the role parents play in their child's formal mentoring relationship. This study explores the nature of parental involvement in formal community-based youth mentoring relationships. An analysis was conducted of in-depth qualitative interviews collected at multiple data points from parents and mentors of 30 mentoring matches, selected from a larger longitudinal study of youth mentoring relationships, and one-time in-depth interviews with 12 staff members from the agencies supervising the mentoring matches conducted for the purposes of this study (a total of 162 transcripts). Thematic coding and narrative summaries were utilized to develop themes that were compared within and across cases. This analysis yielded three main findings regarding the nature of parental involvement in mentoring relationships and the beliefs surrounding it, namely 1) the presence of distinct assumptions and expectations held by participants regarding parents and their involvement in mentoring relationships, 2) the identification by participants of five parental roles that were both expected of and actually performed by parents in their child's mentoring relationship, and 3) the identification of three types of parent-mentor interactions, which contributed to the characterization of parent-mentor relationships based on a level of communication and a degree of closeness. These study findings bring the perspectives of parents to the forefront in the examination of parental involvement in mentoring, a topic that is only beginning to gain greater attention within mentoring literature and research. Together these findings suggest that programs may be missing opportunities to tap into an important yet undervalued resource of parents, in supporting and strengthening the youth-mentor relationship.

Sport is deemed by many researchers and practitioners as a favourable context to foster positive youth development (PYD), including the acquisition of life skills (Petitpas et al., 2005). However, researchers have cautioned for vigilance before assuming with assurance that sport leads to positive developmental outcomes (Coakley, 2011). Consequently, it is important to understand how sport leaders can facilitate the development and transfer of life skills. In the context of high school sport in Canada, teacher-coaches are considered essential adults in the delivery of school sport programs. Using Pierce et al.’s (2017) life skills transfer model, the present thesis explored the contextual and psychological factors influencing the development and transfer of life skills. An intervention was designed, using action research principles, with two high school teacher-coaches. Data were collected via teacher-coach pre- and post-intervention interviews, as well as student-athlete post-intervention interviews (i.e., five student-athletes per teacher-coach). Further, data were gathered through observation, and audio recording of each life skill implementation, as well as a researcher reflective journal. The results indicated that teacher-coaches played an important role in influencing contextual and psychological factors, in both the learning and the transfer context, which shaped student-athletes’ life skills development and transfer. The study has practical implications for coach education programs, suggesting the benefits of on the ground support to provide coaches and teacher-coaches with the necessary tools to promote PYD.

Youth minister self-efficacy may be affected by the education received regarding positive youth development and adolescent development in general. A survey intended to explore the correlation between youth minister self-efficacy and education was administered to 43 Southern Baptist youth ministers in Mississippi. The survey used Lykert-type scales, multiple-choice questions, and open-ended questions to assess self-efficacy and positive youth development and adolescent development knowledge. Analysis of variance and correlations were used to analyze the data. Findings indicate that youth minister self-efficacy is related to adolescent development knowledge, but not significantly related to positive youth development knowledge. These findings provide insight into the effect of education on youth minister self-efficacy and lay a groundwork for further research regarding ministerial education and its effects.

No description available.

No description available.

Med utgångspunkt i det transformativa ledarskapet (TFL) och Positive Youth Development (PYD) är syftet med studien att undersöka hur tränare för äldre ungdomslag arbetar för en inkluderande verksamhet där ungdomar får göra sin röst hörd. Det finns ett antagande som säger att organiserad idrott utvecklar ungdomar positivt. Tidigare forskning ifrågasätter detta antagande och menar i stället attidrotten har potential att generera en positiv utveckling för ungdomar men det sker inte automatiskt. Tidigare genomförda studier visar att det finns en utmaning för äldre elitsatsande ungdomslag att kombinera viljan att vinna matcher med att skapa en miljö för positiv utveckling för idrottande ungdomar. Tränarens betydelse har visat sig vara avgörande och TFL anses vara en optimal ledarstil för att idrottande ungdomar ska kunna utvecklas på ett personligt plan i kombination med en idrottslig utveckling. Genom att, ur ett socialkonstruktivistiskt perspektiv, studera tränares upplevda transformativa beteenden skapades en större förståelse för ledarskapet i en elitsatsande verksamhet. Semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes med sju tränare för sex ungdomslag (tre pojk- och tre flicklag) i fotboll och analyserades med hjälp av meningskoncentrering. Ungdomarnas ålder var 17 år. Resultatet visar att de intervjuade tränarna besitter den intra- och interpersonella kunskap som, tillsammans med en professionell kunskap, definierar en effektiv tränare för ungdomslag. De intervjuade tränarna påvisar önskvärda transformativa beteenden i form av förmågan att vara en förebild för ungdomarna, att kunna inspirera och motivera dem, att ge dem möjlighet att uttrycka sina åsikter samt att uppmärksamma enskilda individer. Dock visar sig dessa beteenden endast i en mer implicit form. För att kunna synliggöra dessa önskvärda beteenden behöver det lyftas fram som explicita kunskaper i både tränar- och ledarskapsutbildningar inom idrotten. Framtida forskning bör inkludera de aktiva ungdomarna som målgrupp

Positiv psykologi har influerat studier om att leva det bra livet. Forskning om karaktärsstyrkor för att öka välbefinnande har tillsammans med betoningen på social kontext bidragit till insatser för att främja ungdomars utveckling. En viktig faktor i ungdomars utveckling har visats vara deras insatser i skolan. Insatsen i skolan på gymnasienivå kan ha ett stort inflytande på introduktionen till vuxenlivet. Studien undersökte vilka relationer som finns mellan ungdomars sociala stöd, välbefinnande och självskattade skolinsats. Detta skedde utifrån tre hypoteser och en frågeställning. I studien deltog 212 gymnasieelever genom att svara på en enkät som bestod av EPOCH Measure of Adolescent Well-Being, Multidimensional Scale of Percieved Social Support samt frågor för självskattad skolinsats. Materialet undersöktes med korrelationer, t-tester och två regressionsanalyser. Slutsatsen var att gymnasieelevers kön, välbefinnande och sociala stöd till olika grad har betydelse för den självskattade skolinsatsen. Ihärdighet visade sig vara den starkaste prediktoren för hur ungdomar skattar sina skolinsatser.