Effects of After-School Programs with At-Risk Youth on Attendance and Externalizing Behaviors: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

The popularity, demand, and increased federal and private funding for after-school programs have resulted in a marked increase in after-school programs over the past two decades. After-school programs are used to prevent adverse outcomes, decrease risks, or improve functioning with at-risk youth in several areas, including academic achievement, crime and behavioral problems, socio-emotional functioning, and school engagement and attendance; however, the evidence of effects of after-school programs remains equivocal. This systematic review and meta-analysis, following Campbell Collaboration guidelines, examined the effects of after-school programs on externalizing behaviors and school attendance with at-risk students. A systematic search for published and unpublished literature resulted in the inclusion of 24 studies. A total of 64 effect sizes (16 for attendance outcomes; 49 for externalizing behavior outcomes) extracted from 31 reports were included in the meta-analysis using robust variance estimation to handle dependencies among effect sizes. Mean effects were small and non-significant for attendance and externalizing behaviors. A moderate to large amount of heterogeneity was present; however, no moderator variable tested explained the variance between studies. Significant methodological shortcomings were identified across the corpus of studies included in this review. Implications for practice, policy and research are discussed.

Community Learning and University Policy: An Inner-City University Goes Back to School

“…Coaching, mentoring, and role modeling Mino Bimaadiziwin, or a good life-which involves sports, team building, and keeping busy with learning activities-is one method of building belonging and offsetting some of the boredom and potential for youth to engage in high risk activities. These ideas are supported in meta-analyses of afterschool programs for vulnerable youth in the U.S., which suggests that non-academic activities may also have a positive impact on the developmental outcomes of young people (Durlak, Weissberg, & Pachan, 2010;Kremer, Maynard, Polanin, Vaughn, & Sarteschi, 2015). Likewise, in their case studies of Indigenous high school students, Preston and Claypool (2013) posed the question, "What motivates students to learn" (p.259)?…”

A Review of the Evidence on the Effects of Community-based Programs on Young People’s Social and Emotional Skills Development

“…Various definitions of communitybased youth programs are used, however, for the purposes of this study, we define them as organized programs supervised by adults that usually occur outside of regular school classes and involve more than one activity (adapted from Kremer et al 2015). Programs that were delivered primarily by teachers during school hours were not included, nor were community-based parenting programs involving young people and their families.…”

“…However, not all evaluation studies have shown benefits. A meta-analysis of 24 after-school programs (including both academic and non-academic programs) with at-risk youth was conducted by Kremer et al (2015). Nearly all of the included studies, apart from one, originated in the US.…”

“…Extant reviews of community-based youth programs have concluded that there is a paucity of rigorous evaluation studies in this area, highlighting the need to strengthen the evidence base, particularly with regards to use of more robust study designs, standardized outcome measures and evaluation of implementation quality (National Research Council and Institute of Medicine 2002;Catalano et al 2004;Durlak et al 2010;Kremer et al 2015). Improving the quality of evaluation research of youth programs in the community setting is, therefore, identified as an important priority for development.…”

Rethinking physical activity for children: implications for the working poor

“…After-school programs are diverse with only some programs including physical activity and few having adequately trained teachers [15,16]. For those afterschool programs that do include physical activity, increasing children's levels of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity to recommended levels has been difficult [16,17].…”