Abstract
Project “P.A.T.H.S.” has been shown to be effective in promoting positive development outcomes among Chinese adolescents in the school context. However, little is known whether the benefits can also be found in other settings. The purposes of the study was to investigate the changes in psychosocial outcomes among Hong Kong Chinese adolescents after participating in a community-based positive youth development (PYD) program. Using a one-group pretest-posttest design, junior high school students (N = 17,544) were invited to join the universal prevention program (the Tier 1 Program) and/or the selective prevention program (the Tier 2 Program). 10,807 students whose pre-and post-test data were successfully matched. The students responded to validated outcome measures assessing PYD outcomes, life satisfaction and thriving at pretest and posttest. Consistent with the hypotheses, students showed positive change on different developmental outcomes after joining the program. Amongst the different programs, students in the Tier 2 Program had significant improvement in all developmental outcome indicators. While limitations of the one-group pretest-posttest design and the alternative explanations are duly acknowledged, the present study suggests that the community-based Project P.A.T.H.S. is a promising approach to promote positive youth development, life satisfaction and thriving of adolescents, a conclusion which is consistent with the existing evaluation findings of the project. Building from previous school-based research, the present study extends the literature by showing the effectiveness of a positive youth prevention program in a community context. Limitations of the study design (e.g., an absence of a control group) are discussed.
Highlights
The development of adolescents has always been an important population theme of the United Nations (United Nations 2012)
With respect to Hypothesis 1, results demonstrated a significant interaction between time and indicators based on the 15 subscales of Chinese Positive Youth Development Scale (CPYDS); F(14, 10,793) = 39.21, p < .001, partial eta squared =
Results of the univariate analyses showed that the scores of primary and secondorder factors of the CPYDS were significantly higher at posttest of the program with
Summary
The development of adolescents has always been an important population theme of the United Nations (United Nations 2012). To grow into healthy, caring and responsible adults, adolescents have to accomplish developmental tasks such as establishing personal identity, seeking independence from parental figures, developing interpersonal intimacy, recognizing sexual adequacy, developing self-esteem, and developing feelings of competence (Dolgin 2018; Erikson 1968; Fanos 1997; Pennington and Sharrott 1985). These developmental tasks of adolescents are not accomplished, and there is increased attention to the developmental problems among adolescents (Shek et al 2011; Tonkin and Frappier 2003). Positive youth development programs may be a promising strategy for promoting adolescent wellbeing and preventing developmental problems (Catalano et al 2012)
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