Purpose in Life & Youth Program Learning and Engagement Study Findings from Schuyler County
Study Overview To have a purpose in life is to possess an important life aim; one that when pursued, creates a sense of meaning and keeps you moving forward. Because purpose can help individuals to organize short- and long-term goals and fully reach their potential, researchers consider it to be a developmental asset. Indeed, numerous studies show that purposeful people enjoy healthier and happier lives. While not everyone feels a deep sense of purpose, the good news is that many people do – and there is growing evidence that youth also are capable of feeling and cultivating this sense.1 An especially promising line of work suggests that the more strongly youth feel a sense of purpose, the deeper they engage with educational topics and practice more effective learning strategies. The reason for this is that considering one’s purpose may generate a broad and forward-thinking outlook that encourages connecting current learning with downstream goals. That is, a purpose can operate as a tool for collecting new information and interpreting it in ways that are beneficial to navigating one’s way ahead. Given this potential, the current study was designed to determine if providing youth with a chance to consider their own purpose in life can increase their engagement and learning in educational 4-H programs. Analytic approach To start, our research team identified several youth-focused educational programs within the New York State 4-H system that were on their first day of launching. Prior to youth receiving any educational instruction or beginning activities in the program, we randomly split them into two separate groups, and asked them to write for just a few minutes about either (a) their sense of purpose or (b) a neutral control topic. Specifically, youth responded to one of these two writing prompts: Purpose prompt: Please tell us about your purpose in life. What is it that you most want to accomplish or contribute? Even if you do not feel that you have a specific purpose now, consider what it might be in the future. How will working toward your purpose help other people or help the world? Control prompt: Please tell us about the last movie that you’ve seen. What was the title? What was it about? What was your favorite or least favorite part of the movie? After writing, youth began participating in their educational program as planned. At the completion of the first day of their program, we measured youths’ levels of engagement and learning, as well as some indicators of their mood and sense of control. More detailed information about each of our measures is presented below. In order to be inclusive of the diversity of programs and counties in NYS 4-H, we visited 21 different programs across 7 counties in New York State, and collected data from 161 youth (60% female) between the ages of 11 and 18. The racial and ethnic diversity of our sample is as follows: 11% Hispanic or Latino, 71% White, 4% American Indian, 7% African American, 7% Asian American, and 17% Other (percentages do not total to 100% because youth were able to select more than one ethnicity). Regarding 4-H participation: 35% participated in their first 4-H program on that day, 27% had participated in other 4-H programs, and 29% were 4-H club members. Details about your county In Schuyler County, we collected data from 7 youth (57.1% female) at Holiday Fun; 3 youth from this program were assigned to the purpose-writing condition, and 4 youth were assigned to the control-writing condition, in which they wrote about the last movie they saw. Due to sample size restrictions, we did not draw statistical inferences based exclusively on the data from your county. Instead, we provide a descriptive overview of the average (mean) scores and standard deviations for the data from your programs below. These descriptive statistics are provided for GPA, 4-H participation, and intention to go to college. In addition, we assessed agency, positive and negative mood, gains in knowledge and interest, purposeful motives for learning, self-oriented motives for learning, meaningfulness of the activity, identity exploration, identity reflection, cognitive engagement, affective engagement, and purposeful engagement. Given the wide variety of programs provided by 4-H in your association, please note that these results only speak to the programs that we visited for this study and, therefore, may not be generalizable to other programming in your county. 1 See Burrow, O’Dell, and Hill (2010) and Bronk (2012) 3
Results Quantitative Results: Overall Sample from Schuyler County Below we present means [and standard deviations] for variables assessed among youth in your program and the overall sample. Please note that the mean represents the average score on that variable, and the standard deviation represents the dispersion, or average distance, from the mean. A brief description of how each variable was measured appears beneath it. County GPA Overall Study GPA County College Overall Study College Mean [Standard 4.83 [0.41] 4.52 [0.64] 4.57 [0.54] 4.58 [0.67] Deviation] GPA: On a scale of 1 – “Mostly F’s” - to 5 – “Mostly A’s”, the average of the responses of the youth in your county was 4.83, which indicates that their grades are “Mostly A’s”. College: On a scale from 1 – “Definitely will not attend” – to 5 – “Definitely will attend,” the average of the responses of the youth in your county was 4.57, which indicates that they definitely intend to go to college. County Overall Study County Overall Study County Overall Study Agency Agency Negative Positive Mood Positive Mood Negative Mood 3.96 [0.91] Mood 1.77 [0.73] Mean 3.9 [0.82] 3.99 [0.53] 3.60 [0.83] 1.87 [0.48] [Standard Deviation] Agency: This scale was used to measure agency in goal-directed thinking before youth participated in your programs (i.e. “I energetically pursue my goals”). On a scale from 1 – “Very False” – to 5 – “Very True”, the average of the responses of the youth in your county was 3.96, which indicates that they believe such statements about their agency in pursuing their goals to be “Moderately True”. Mood: This scale was used to measure the mood of the youth. Before they participated in your programs, youth were asked to indicate the extent to which they felt emotions such as “enthusiastic” to indicate positive mood and “irritable” to indicate negative mood. On a scale from 1 – “Not At All” – to 5 – “Extremely”, the average of the responses of the youth in your county was 3.99 for positive mood, which corresponds to “Moderately” positive, and 1.87 for negative mood, which corresponds to “Slightly” negative. 4
GPA, College, Agency, Positive and Negative Mood 5 4.5 4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 County Overall County Overall County Overall County Overall County Overall GPA College Agency Positive Mood Negative Mood County Overall Study Meaningfulness of activity: This scale was used to assess Meaningfulness of Meaningfulness of activity activity youth perceptions of the meaningfulness of the program Mean 3.22 [0.75] 2.99 [0.73] when compared to the meaning that derives from school, [Standard reading a book, and homework. On a scale from 1 – Deviation] “Much Less” – to 4 – “Much More”, the average of the responses from the youth in your county was 3.22, which corresponds to “More” meaningful than other activities. County Gains Overall Study County Overall Study County Overall Study in knowledge Gains in Identity Identity Identity Identity and interest knowledge Exploration Exploration Reflection Reflection and interest 2.62 [0.91] Mean 3.50 [0.62] 3.12 [0.66] 3.07 [0.64] 2.83 [0.76] 3.22 [0.91] [Standard Deviation] Gains in knowledge and interest: This scale was used to determine how much youth’s knowledge and interest in the program material changed after participating in the program. On a scale from 1 – “Decreased” – to 4 – “Increased Greatly”, the average of the responses of the youth in your county was 3.50, which corresponds to “Increased Somewhat”. Identity exploration: This scale was used to assess identity exploration due to involvement in the program. Identity exploration is a process in which an adolescent tries out new roles and options for his or her identity. On a scale from 1 – “Not at all” to 4 – “Yes, definitely”, the average of the responses from the youth in your county was 3.07, which corresponds to “Quite a bit” of identity exploration. Identity reflection: This scale was used to assess identity reflection due to involvement in the program. Identity reflection is a process in which an adolescent thinks about who he or she is, as well as how this might change in the future. On a scale from 1 – “Not at all” to 4 – “Yes, definitely”, the average of the responses from the youth in your county was 3.22, which corresponds to “Quite a bit” of identity reflection. 5
Meaningfulness of activity, Gains in knowledge and interest, Identity exploration and reflection 4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 County Overall County Overall County Overall County Overall Meaningfulness of Gains in knowledge Identity Identity reflection activity and interest exploration County Purposeful Overall Study County Self- Overall Study Self- motives for learning Purposeful motives oriented motives oriented motives for learning for learning for learning Mean [Standard 4.17 [0.78] 3.80 [0.77] 3.94 [1.08] 3.87 [0.96] Deviation] Purposeful motives for learning: This scale was used to determine youth’s motives for learning in terms of how this new knowledge might impact the world beyond themselves (i.e. “I wanted to become an educated citizen that can contribute to society.”). On a scale from 1 (“Very False”) to 5 (“Very True”), the average of the responses of the youth in your county was 4.17, which indicates that they believe such statements about their purposeful motives for learning to be “Moderately True.” Self-oriented motives for learning: This scale was used to determine youth’s self-oriented, interest driven motives for learning (i.e. “I wanted to expand my knowledge of the world.”). On a scale from 1 (“Very False”) to 5 (“Very True”) the average of the responses of the youth in your county was 3.94, which indicates that they believe such statements about their self-oriented motives for learning to be “Moderately True”. County Overall Study County Overall Study County Overall Study Cognitive Purposeful Engagement Cognitive Affective Affective Purposeful Engagement Engagement Engagement Engagement Engagement Mean 4.44 [0.40] 3.82 [0.82] 4.06 [0.57] 3.65 [0.99] 4.22 [0.78] 3.46 [1.14] [Standard Deviation] Cognitive engagement: This scale was used to assess youth desire to exert effort and employ concentration to develop skills related to this program. On a scale from 1 (“Very False”) to 5 (“Very True”), the average of the responses from the youth in your county was 4.44, which indicates that they believe such statements about their cognitive engagement to be “Moderately True.” Affective engagement: This scale was used to assess whether youth reacted positively or negatively to the setting, activities, peers, and leaders involved with this program (i.e. “I enjoy this activity and have fun when I am involved.”). On a scale from 1 (“Very False”) to 5 (“Very True”), the average of the responses from the youth in your county was 4.06, which indicates that they believe such statements about their affective engagement to be “Moderately True.” Purposeful engagement: This scale was used to assess the aspects of youth engagement in this program that impact youth’s connection to others either at the individual level or the community level (e.g. “This activity connects me to other people.”). On a scale from 1 (“Very False”) to 5 (“Very True”), the average of the responses from the youth in your county was 4.22, which indicates that they believe such statements about their purposeful engagement to be between “Moderately True”. 6
Purposeful and Self-oriented motives for learning, Cognitive, affective, and purposeful engagement 5 4.5 4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 County Overall County Overall County Overall County Overall County Overall Purposeful motives Self-oriented Cognitive Affective Purposeful for learning motives for engagement engagement engagement learning Qualitative Results Below are some examples of how youth in your program described their purposes in life: “My purpose in life is to get a good education to become a registered nurse as well as help provide for my family. As well as to give back to my community. I will donate clothes, and non-perishable foods to the food bank and the Salvation Army as well as help out with school functions.” “In the future I want to be a photographer for dogs and other stuff like dance. It will help the dogs find homes.” “My purpose is to cook a lot for people. It will help people by cooking for others.” Many youth said that they learned a new skill, whether technical or interpersonal, as a result of the program: I learned that when cranberries get really hot they turn really dark I like the program. It is lots of fun can’t think of anything to improve. I have learned to be patient and I should let the younger kids go first like I did and I learned how to can today. What I learned from this program is I learned to cook, bake, and can. How to cut and measure. I learned that stuff can be hot and you got to be careful with it. Stay tuned for overall study findings! Overall study results will reveal whether our intervention (writing briefly about one’s purpose in life prior to engaging in the first session of a 4-H program) was effective in increasing youth engagement in the program. 7
Search
Read the Text Version
- 1 - 7
Pages: