EEE TIG Week: Mary Arnold on Program Quality Matters for Youth Development

Hello! My name is Mary Arnold, I am a professor and 4-H Youth Development Specialist at Oregon State University. In my Extension specialist role, I get to work in that liminal space between research and practice. In this space I spend a great deal of time translating research into effective youth development practice in 4-H programs, which lately has focused on the importance of developing programs that provide a nourishing developmental context for young people. By developmental context I mean the settings, experiences, and activities that 4-H programs provide to help youth to grow and thrive. This focus is important for two reasons, first because high quality programs lead to better outcomes, and second, because program quality is something that youth practitioners have a great deal of control over. If practitioners develop and implement high quality programs, my job as an evaluator is much easier.

As the field of youth development took hold in the 1990s, there was an immediate corresponding interest in measuring program outcomes. Unfortunately, outcomes were often measured without consideration of what really happened in the program. Fortunately, research about youth development programs is now increasingly focused on what happens in programs and how what happens leads to outcomes. As an evaluator, improving programs and articulating the theory of action that connects programs to outcomes increases the rigor of the evaluation findings. Program quality matters! And in the case of youth programs, the pieces that make up a developmental context are increasingly understood.

Some of these pieces include:

• Helping youth find and enhance their “spark”
• Surrounding youth with development relationships, that express care, challenge growth and share power
• Paying attention to youth program quality principles such as belonging, safety, mattering, efficacy, and skill development
• Engaging youth beyond mere attendance in programs to provide an experience that has depth, breadth and duration.

These ingredients are not unique to 4-H programs; any youth program focused on positive youth development can emphasize the same ingredients.

Hot Tip

Consider evaluating your program’s developmental context and use the results of the evaluation to work on program continuous program improvement. High quality programs lead to better outcomes for youth.

Rad Resources

• Watch the late Dr. Peter Benson talk about sparks in his TEDxTX presentation.
• Download the Developmental Relationships Framework from Search Institute.
• Download Community Programs to Promote Youth Development to learn the key ingredients of youth development programs.

 The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Extension Education Evaluation (EEE) TIG Week with our colleagues in the EEE AEA Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from our EEE TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.