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The 4Cs of positive youth development (PYD; competence, confidence, connection, and character) have been advocated as desirable athlete outcomes of sport participation, and in effect, a useful proxy measure of coaching effectiveness. However, a shortcoming of this framework has been a lack of tangible ways to accurately measure these constructs in athletes. This article reviews the sport literature and presents a concise toolkit made up of existing questionnaires and measurement techniques that can collectively be used to assess coaches' ability to facilitate PYD in athletes in organized youth sport settings. This integrative approach to the measurement of PYD in athletes is not designed to replace similar questionnaires in sport, but is simply a measurement approach grounded in the PYD literature that can be applied across a range of sport contexts. Implications for the use of this framework and toolkit in both coaching research and practice are discussed.

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While previous research highlights the important benefits that sport participation can have for youth development, limited research has examined the sport experiences of athletes with disabilities (Martin, 2006). The purpose of this study was to describe the sport experiences of athletes with physical disabilities in a model swim program that has been widely recognized for the development of positive values in athletes. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight athletes with a physical disability. Participants were both male (n = 3) and female (n = 5), between 9 -19 years of age, and averaged 5.9 years of swimming experience. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and were subjected to a content analysis procedure in which raw meaning units were grouped into salient themes (Côté, Salmela, Baria, & Russell, 1993;Tesch, 1990). Athletes' responses regarding the outcomes derived from this program revealed four themes: 1) Redefined capabilities, 2) affirmed sense of self, 3) strengthened social connection, and 4) enhanced acceptance. Social and contextual processes facilitating the development of these outcomes are also discussed. Practical implications for programmers, coaches, and athletes are presented along with recommendations for future sport research.

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