Louisiana 4-H State Leadership Boards: Measuring Leadership Life Skills and Youth-Adult Relationships.

Abstract

This descriptive correlational study sought to measure the development of leadership life skills and the perceptions of youth-adult relationships by youth serving on the Louisiana 4-H State Leadership Boards. Members of the 2013-2014 Louisiana 4-H State Leadership Boards (N = 99) served as the population for the study. Overall, 4-H members who served on the Louisiana 4-H State Leadership Boards perceived they gained “a lot” of leadership life skills from their board involvement. Board members reported high levels of youth involvement, adult involvement, and youth-adult interaction. Based on the high levels of involvement and interaction, youth-adult partnerships were present on the Louisiana 4-H State Leadership Boards. The participants involved in this study and the total population of 4-H members is not concurrent with each other in terms of race or gender. Youth development professionals could vary the recruitment efforts of potential board members to include a more diverse pool of applicants. This could include widening the range of diverse adult sponsors. Future research should be conducted to determine if there is a difference in youth who serve on the Louisiana 4-H State Leadership Boards and other 4-H members who do not serve on the boards. No statistically significant relationship existed between development of leadership life skills and youth-adult partnerships. Future research should investigate the subject deeper to determine why in this study the leadership life skills and youth-adult partnerships had no significant relationship.