Positive Youth Development: A Measurement Framework for Sport

Abstract

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.

A Systematic Review of Life Skill Development Through Sports Programs Serving Socially Vulnerable Youth

“…An example of such a study was that by Armour and Sandford (2013), who asked teachers to write pupil profiles at several points from the start of a sports program to more than a year after its completion. Third, to increase the comparability of future quantitative studies in this field, researchers may benefit from using general youth development surveys, such as the survey and measurement frameworks developed by Lopez, Yoder, Brisson, Lechuga-Pena, and Jenson (2014) and Vierimaa, Erickson, Côté, and Gilbert (2012). These instruments provide a more holistic picture of youth's development than do questionnaires designed to study one individual outcome.…”

Nurture, nature and some very dubious social skills: an interpretative phenomenological analysis of talent identification practices in elite English youth soccer

“…In terms of coaching practice, we might well view this kind of reasoning as anathema to proposals in work such as that of Côté and Gilbert (2009) and Vierimaa et al (2012), which actively advocate the importance of promoting generalised, healthy social connections (with friends, peers and families) in facilitating effective psychological development in players. Moreover, it might seem academically suspect to 'cherry pick' certain domains and types of activity when assembling an account of an individual's psychology while sidelining others into a residual category.…”

The “Programa Segundo Tempo” in Brazilian Municipalities: Outcome Indicators in Macrosystem

“…O alcance positivo da participação do esporte no desenvolvimento humano tem sido destacado nos aspectos físicos, sociais e psicológicos ao longo do curso da vida 5,[10][11][12][13][14][15] . Assim, na ecologia do desenvolvimento humano 15,16 , a participação no esporte tem sido considerada uma atividade significativa, que alcança as diferentes dimensões dos ativos ecológicos por uma comissão de especialistas.…”