{"id":457,"date":"2020-04-23T11:28:38","date_gmt":"2020-04-23T15:28:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/undergraduate-research-forum\/?p=457"},"modified":"2020-04-27T16:58:07","modified_gmt":"2020-04-27T20:58:07","slug":"sports-as-a-medium-for-positive-youth-development-a-review-of-the-literature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/undergraduate-research-forum\/sports-as-a-medium-for-positive-youth-development-a-review-of-the-literature\/","title":{"rendered":"B80: Sports as a Medium for Positive Youth Development: A Review of the Literature"},"content":{"rendered":"

My community psychology capstone group studied positive youth development (PYD) theory, an approach to youth development focused on the promotion of a child\u2019s strengths rather than the purging of their problems. This theory is directly applicable to our class\u2019s work with The Boys and Girls Club (BGC) of Hamilton. Because we found that much of the PYD literature is centered around sports-based programs and BGC leaders identified sports as an area of interest, we decided to find the answer to the question: how can sports-based programs be best used to promote positive youth development? We conducted an exploratory literature review on sports-based PYD programming, collected common themes, and transformed them into best practices that could be applied to the development of a supplementary program for the BGC. One theme is feelings of belongingness; not only are these feelings a positive outcome of successful programs, but they can be capitalized on to increase overall effectiveness. As such, programmers should emphasize team identity with team name, mantra, and have bonding activities for team members. Next is the need for leaders to be intentional and use a transformational style; leaders should be trained, the program goals should be explicit, and leaders must explicitly describe how skills learned in the sport context can be applied to other areas of life. Lastly is the ultimate importance of consistency in setting, leaders, message, delivery style, and across family and community contexts, without which all other benefits are muted. We recommend that programs give these factors priority in budgeting. After providing these recommendations the BGC we hope that they can either apply for extra funding to create a full-time outside-the-club sport program for their members or embed these findings into a regular segment of the normal club meeting. In addition, these findings have practical value for my future as an educator.<\/p>\n

Authors:<\/strong> Johanna M. L. Alexander (presenter), Dominique A. Robinson, Zachary M. Capretta, Destiny L. Fackey<\/p>\n

Faculty Advisor:<\/strong> Dr. Paul Flaspohler, Department of Psychology<\/p>\n\n\n