Abstract
Research on Positive Youth Development (PYD) has been hampered by lack of a valid measure for the construct, particularly for research in sport. The Youth Experiences Scale for Sport (YES-S) [1], is a five-factor measure of positive youth outcomes specifically designed for the sport context. The YES-S is a promising instrument that fills an important niche in PYD research, and MacDonald et al. provided support for many of its psychometric properties. However, the factor structure of the scale is currently based on an exploratory factor analysis and has not yet been subjected to a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The present study was designed to confirm the five-factor structure of the YES-S. A sample of 350 youth sport athletes (196 male, 153 female) completed the YES-S. A CFA showed that a modified version of the five-factor YES-S had excellent fit of the model to the data. An analysis of invariance showed no differences in responses in terms of gender. It is concluded that this short-form YES-S offers excellent psychometric properties while retaining the original factor structure of the YES-S. The results offer further support for the validity of the factor structure of the YES-S while providing a shorter version of the scale, which may be appealing for research with younger sport participants.
Highlights
The positive outcomes that youth can develop through sport may outweigh the sport-specific outcomes athletes derive
When the results did not support Hansen and Larson’s model, the authors proceeded to perform exploratory factor analyses. These analyses revealed a five-factor model, which they termed the Youth Experiences Survey for Sport (YES-S)
The variables of the YES-S were normally distributed, with the exception of the items regarding Negative Experiences. These values were retained in the data because confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using Maximum Likelihood method is considered robust for these violations and skewed values on these items, which indicate extreme negative outcomes, are meaningful; high negative skew in these items would indicate that they rarely happen
Summary
The positive outcomes that youth can develop through sport may outweigh the sport-specific outcomes athletes derive. The significant applied findings that research may generate are hampered by the lack of a valid measurement. Issues with measurement validity are a characteristic of Positive Youth Development. 170), suffered from high rates of boredom and disconnected from meaningful challenges. His findings led towards the idea that these deficits were not due to psychopathology or increases in negative outcomes, but instead due to a lack of positive outcomes and positive development [2]. A new theoretical framework termed PYD was constructed to target development as an asset towards fostering positive outcomes and reducing negative outcomes [1] [2]
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