Abstract
In light of the increasing global population of young people, practitioners and policy makers face formidable challenges in promoting positive youth development and the successful transition to adulthood. Youth participatory research is one promising and rapidly growing approach for generating evidence to inform policy and intervention strategies to best serve youth populations. Here, we consider how developmental science contributes to our understanding about the benefits—for youth, as well as for programs and policies—of engaging youth at different developmental stages in research. We link insights from developmental science to evidence from youth-engaged research to determine where the most fruitful developmental matches may occur. We can maximize the benefits for youth and simultaneously improve research projects when developmental needs, capacities, priorities, and constraints of youth in various stages are thoughtfully considered.
Introduction
Today, there are more young people on the planet than ever before in human history. This has generated a surge in interest in how to best serve and engage young people across the diverse developmental period of adolescence and young adulthood (e.g., Patton et al., 2016). In communities throughout the world, the challenge of effectively serving young people’s evolving developmental needs—as well as leveraging their capacities—is compounded by their increasing racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity (Frey, 2014; U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Office of Adolescent Health, 2016). This underscores the importance of effective strategies that create positive social, political, and environmental contexts to maximize the positive development of the large youth population.
One challenge to effectively serving youth is the developmental diversity that occurs in adolescence. Adolescence begins with the onset of puberty and extends through the social transition of assuming adult rights, roles, and responsibilities (approximately 10-25 years old) (Sawyer, Azzopardi, Wickremarathne, & Patton, 2018). There is a wide range of individual differences in the timing and duration of this period, influenced by factors including biology, economics, culture, and political and social contexts. In addition to these individual differences, there is diversity in skills, capacities, neurodevelopment, interests, and contexts during this wide developmental window. The complexity is further compounded by the variation in legal age of maturity for different rights and privileges, which can often result in a young person simultaneously having adult legal rights in some life domains and not in others.
Youth-led participatory action research (YPAR) is one approach used to engage young people in enhancing the impact and relevance of youth-focused interventions. YPAR is an equity-focused form of community-based participatory research (CBPR) in which youth are trained to identify, analyze, and promote actions on issues relevant to their lives (Ozer, 2017). Through YPAR, youth can leverage the insights they gain from conducting research to take a leadership role in evaluating the impact of programs and services and in advocating for positive change in relevant programs, policies, and environments (Brydon-Miller, Greenwood, & Maguire, 2003; Ozer, 2017). In addition, YPAR can be an important approach for racially diverse and traditionally marginalized youth to experience self-determination, social justice, and empowerment (Akom, 2011), and can help to raise awareness of disparities and to address inequity and inequality between diverse groups of youth (Caraballo, Lozenski, Lyiscott, & Morrell, 2017; Welton, Harris, La Londe, & Moyer, 2015).
Engaging young people in action research has been promoted for more than 40 years. Aligning with the U.N. Rights of the Child that participation is a basic human right, the 1995 World Programme of Action for Youth on Participation called for opportunities for youth to participate in decision making as “the capacity for progress of our societies is based . . . on their capacity to incorporate the contribution and responsibility of youth in the building and designing of the future” (5.J.104; United Nations General Assembly, 1995). Many models and frameworks outline rubrics to scaffold youth engagement with the aim of maximizing the impact and benefit for both youth and the resulting programs and policies (Iacofano, 1990; Lundy, 2007; Lundy & McEvoy, 2011; Wong, Zimmerman, & Parker, 2010). In each of these models, there is a spectrum of youth engagement ranging from youth as more passive “subjects”—to youth as actively engaging in and even autonomously leading research and transforming their environments. YPAR emphasizes high levels of youth leadership and participation and engages young people in identifying problems in their own lives or communities, collecting and analyzing data to understand the problems, and advocating for changes based on their evidence (Ozer, 2016). In practice, constraints in time, resources, expertise, and capacity lead to the implementation of YPAR projects that vary widely on the spectrum of meaningful youth engagement and youth leadership. As reviewed extensively elsewhere (Kohfeldt, Chhun, Grace, & Langhout, 2011; Kornbluh, Ozer, Allen, & Kirshner, 2015), YPAR presents promise and faces challenges to being incorporated into systems, especially educational systems, at scale.
Although participatory approaches to research aim to provide benefits for the youth researchers, the research, and a broader set of stakeholders, the evidence for its value in the research process is limited. Participatory research approaches, including YPAR, yield more publications about the research process, because best practices are still evolving and outcomes are harder to test (Jacquez, Vaughn, & Wagner, 2013). Some recent studies have focused on benefits to youth of engaging youth in action research efforts. The emergent literature suggests that engaging in YPAR can benefit youth in several ways, including improvements in strategic thinking, health outcomes, relationships with adults, engagement in school, and sense of empowerment, efficacy, and perceived control (Ozer, 2017; Ozer & Douglas, 2013; Voight & Velez, 2018). Despite being a persistent question from stakeholders considering YPAR approaches, no systematic evidence documents the added value of youth engagement in the quality of the research or resulting programs and policies. As highlighted below, an integrated developmental science–informed approach to YPAR can be used to inform questions about this broader range of impacts and help provide a framework for more rigorously documenting the effects of engaging youth in research on youth researchers, the research itself, and the communities involved.
To effectively engage youth in social change, the methods and strategies of YPAR should be aligned to best match their developmental needs (Merves, Rodgers, Silver, Sclafane, & Bauman, 2015). The addition of a developmental science lens to existing youth engagement frameworks can inform the precision of both design and impact of YPAR projects (see Tables 1 and 2). Developmental science can be used to determine when engaging in research may be most impactful for the youth researchers and for outcomes their research is informing. In addition to thinking about YPAR in the context of the social, emotional, and biological transitions that characterize adolescence, research from developmental science can help to identify inflection points when certain types of capacities may be most enhanced and certain learning and experiences may be most beneficial. Because of the biological transitions in secondary sex characteristics and associated transitions in power dynamics and socially constructed gender roles during adolescence, a developmental lens can also provide a level of specificity when considering how different groups of young people (i.e., single vs. mixed gender and/or sex groups) may engage with one another and the world around them depending on their stage of development. In addition, as adolescents get older and gain increasing rights, privileges, and freedoms, the levels of social ecology reciprocally influencing and influenced by them also shift—from more proximal levels (e.g., personal, interpersonal) in early adolescence to broader levels in late adolescence (e.g., community, policy; Smetana, Campione-Barr, & Metzger, 2006). Where a young person is on their multiple, simultaneous, personal trajectories (e.g., biological, social, chronological) will inform the type of insights and perspectives they can offer a given project. Youth in different developmental stages can engage in research, and their developmental stage can inform the type of contributions they can make.
Summary of Opportunities and Challenges of Action Research to Youth and Projects for Youth at Various Developmental Periods.
Key Developmentally Informed Questions to Consider When Developing YPAR Projects.
Note. YPAR = youth-led participatory action research.
The main purpose of this article is to consider how developmental science can inform our understanding about the benefits—for youth and projects—of engaging youth at different developmental stages in YPAR. We present relevant theory and findings in developmental science and youth-engaged research to identify where the most dynamic developmental matches may occur. It is well established that adolescence is a period of dynamic social, emotional, and neurodevelopmental transitions that influence the way that young people learn and engage with the world around them (Crone & Dahl, 2012; Pfeifer & Allen, 2012). Here, we investigate the ways in which developmental factors may influence adolescents’ engagement in, and learning from engaging in, research over time. Youth benefit most when opportunities are best matched to their developmental needs and stages (Eccles et al., 1993), and research projects benefit most when the skills, priorities, and constraints of youth in various stages are thoughtfully considered.
Recognizing the diversity of individual developmental trajectories and school systems across the world, we stratify adolescence into three different age periods: very young adolescents (10-14 years old), middle adolescents (15-19 years old), and older adolescents/emerging adults (20-24 years old). Aligning with demarcations that have been applied across diverse global settings (Sawyer et al., 2018), we have used these age categories as a proxy for biological development as we consider how insights from developmental science can inform our understanding of the impact of engaging youth in research and enhance the precision of youth-engaged design, methods, and approaches. In contrast to other work around YPAR, we intentionally chose not to use school grade as the proxy for development, in an effort to ensure that this felt useful for practitioners working with out-of-school youth and to address global variation in school timelines and enrollment, particularly in middle and late adolescence. In the following sections, for each period, we present examples of the types of existing evidence using three approaches: examining systematic reviews on YPAR that were published in the last 5 years (e.g., Anyon, Bender, Kennedy, & Dechants, 2018; Jacquez et al., 2013); conducting additional literature searches on Google Scholar using keywords such as “youth CBPR,” “YPAR,” and “youth participatory research”; and integrating our knowledge of ongoing projects within our networks of YPAR practitioners. We then propose specific developmental opportunities where youth might benefit from engaging in research projects, programmatic opportunities where projects might especially benefit from youth engagement, and the challenges associated with each developmental period.
Very Young Adolescents (10-14 Years Old)
The physical, social, and neurodevelopmental transitions that begin with the onset of puberty align well with the learning goals of engaging in action research. One of the shifts occurring around puberty is the increased motivation to engage in heartfelt goals (Crone & Dahl, 2012; Dahl, Allen, Wilbrecht, & Suleiman, 2018). This stems from remodeling of neural networks involved in attending to and processing social and emotional information (Dahl, 2016; Nelson, Jarcho, & Guyer, 2016), as well as increases in testosterone in both boys and girls that contribute to increases in social risk-taking (Cardoos et al., 2017). These changes lead to important reorganization in social roles and relationships as well as enhanced awareness of one’s self-identity and finding one’s place in complex social hierarchies (Crone & Dahl, 2012; Nelson et al., 2016). Developmental science has pointed to the amplified salience of self-conscious emotions during early adolescence. The hormonal and neurodevelopmental changes occurring at puberty contribute to an enhanced desire for acceptance, admiration, and respect, as well as increased sensitivity to feelings of rejection, disrespect, and humiliation (Silk et al., 2014; Silvers et al., 2012). In addition, adolescents are responsive to autonomy-enhancing messages and experiences and particularly insensitive to autonomy-diminishing ones (Bryan et al., 2016). In sum, as early adolescents navigate this developmental transition, they are seeking experiences that clarify their sense of self, enhance their sense of belonging, bolster their social relationships with peers and adults, and amplify their feelings of autonomy.
In addition to individual changes, young people also experience many social and contextual transitions during early adolescence. The interactions between a wide range of macro-level factors, organizational structures, and social relationships also shift as young people begin to look more physically mature (Blum, Astone, Decker, & Mouli, 2014). If a young person experiences shifts in policies, structures, and relationships that amplify positive trajectories (e.g., positive peer and adult social relationships, attachment to school and successful academic achievement, sense of meaning and purpose in the community), this transition can be particularly beneficial during this developmental window. Unfortunately, the opposite can also be true if a young person experiences shifts in these systems that amplify negative trajectories (e.g., social isolation, discrimination, detachment from school, unhealthy risk-taking behavior). For example, research suggests youth can begin to recognize discrimination (both overt and implicit forms) around age 10, and discriminatory experiences also increase around this time (Brown & Bigler, 2005; Umaña-Taylor, 2016).
In thinking about engaging in action research as an intervention, these developmental science insights support a strong argument for engaging very young adolescents in research. It can provide meaningful opportunities for autonomy and fulfilling increased interest in, capacity for, and reward experienced from engaging in high-stakes social learning. Indeed, emerging developmental research suggests that autonomy-enhancing interventions, which provide opportunities for young people to affirm their sense of independence rather than diminish their sense of self by being overprescriptive about desired behavioral outcomes, may be particularly effective and beneficial for very young adolescents (Yeager, Dahl, & Dweck, 2018). In addition, the great diversity in development trajectories during the peripubertal window also offers a unique opportunity to leverage the varying skills, capacities, and developmental stages among 10- to 14-year-olds that can add valuable texture to an action research project.
The social transition from elementary to middle school that often occurs during this early adolescent window creates an important opportunity for action research. Extensive literature documents the developmental mismatch that occurs between traditional middle schools and early adolescent development leading to negative social, emotional, and educational outcomes (Eccles et al., 1993; Wang & Eccles, 2012). Across economic and geographic contexts, improvements have been made in recent years in completion rates of primary school, but improvements in completion rates for secondary school, particularly in low-resourced countries, have been much smaller (UNESCO, 2018). In higher resourced countries, educators often describe a fifth-grade slump when motivation and engagement in school begin to wane and an eighth-grade cliff at which point a young person who has become critically disengaged from school becomes harder to reengage (Eccles & Roeser, 2011; Juvonen, Nishina, & Graham, 2006). Lack of engagement in education is much more pronounced in lower income, marginalized youth (UNESCO, 2018). Furthermore, the evidence points to significant declines in academic achievement and motivation and effectiveness of many traditional, didactic interventions during early adolescence (Wang & Eccles, 2012; Yeager et al., 2018). In response, many novel education strategies (e.g., Action Civics, Expeditionary Learning Case-Based Learning) that align with developmental science principles promote action research principles in their teaching strategies (EL Education, 2018; Gingold, 2013; Savery, 2006). In fact, engaging youth in research has been proposed as an optimal solution to increase autonomy and help address the developmental mismatch between schools and early adolescent development in U.S. K-12 settings (Ozer, Ritterman, & Wanis, 2010).
Focusing on YPAR efforts with the youngest members of this group, 10- to 11-year-olds, may further strengthen impact. The majority of young people enter early adolescence in early puberty, before they have gone through the physical transitions of looking like sexually mature adults, and therefore prior to the significant amplification of gender roles that occurs with puberty (Hill & Lynch, 1983). As such, giving 10- to 11-year-olds the opportunity to have a successful mastery experience engaging in research-informed social change in mixed-gender groups may preemptively counter some of the gendered messages young people receive about capabilities in science, math, research, and leadership. In addition, it may ignite their passion for, and interest in, engaging in evidence-based social change during an important developmental window, which could inform identity development and shape their trajectory throughout adolescence and into adulthood. By providing opportunities for young people to gather evidence about the world around them, and authentically participate in creating meaningful social change in partnership with peers and trusted adults, we hypothesize the following:
In thinking about the broader impacts of engaging in action research, there are also compelling reasons to engage early adolescents. They have unique insights, skills, and perspectives relevant to the lived experience of their developmental stage and social experience of their age group. They also hold a unique position when advocating for program and policy changes (Suleiman, Soleimanpour, & London, 2006). Given the common (mis)perception of early adolescents as naïve children solely in need of protection instead of as potential active agents of change, the surprise associated with clearly articulated youth voices presenting the results of thoughtful research can be particularly effective in capturing the attention of overworked, distracted policy makers, educators, and/or practitioners (Kohfeldt, Bowen, & Langhout, 2016).
It is also important to consider some of the barriers to engaging very young adolescents in action research. First, although the diversity in individual social, emotional, cognitive, and academic developmental pace occurring during this period provides an opportunity to maximize the breadth of experiences, skills, and expertise, it can also present challenges (Ozer et al., 2010). Tailoring the research process to meet the needs of developmentally diverse learners requires highly skilled facilitators who, rather than being challenged by the complexities of the diversity, can maximize its benefits. This requires intensive training and ongoing support in an already resource-demanding project. Second, a goal of YPAR is to establish youth–adult partnerships that can facilitate social or policy change. This often requires training of the adult partners and allies to create opportunities for effective youth engagement. This includes building their skills to work collaboratively with very young adolescents and address implicit and explicit biases they may have about this age group. In addition, issues that very young adolescents identify as important (e.g., cleaner bathrooms, increased recess time, safer school crosswalks) may feel insignificant to adult partners, leading to project outcomes where the students feel dismissed and the adults feel frustrated (Wilson, Minkler, Dasho, Wallerstein, & Martin, 2008). Despite these challenges, multiple published examples of projects have overcome these limitations (e.g., Dworski-Riggs & Langhout, 2010; Langhout, Collins, & Ellison, 2014; Ozer et al., 2010; Suleiman et al., 2006).
Evidence of Effects of Engaging in Research on Very Young Adolescents
Despite the developmental science pointing to strong theoretical benefits to engaging very young adolescents in research, very limited published research exists in this area. Theoretically, researchers have proposed that engaging early adolescents in YPAR can help address gaps between early adolescents’ developmental needs and traditional school environments, including authentic youth participation, increasing self-efficacy, establishing a sense of purpose, and creating supportive social relationships with peers and trusted adults (Ozer et al., 2010). Projects employing YPAR as an intervention are often designed to increase problem-solving skills, social action, and civic engagement among participants and focus on changing school environment or climate (Wilson et al., 2008). Some preliminary evidence supports that early adolescents who participate in YPAR feel more like leaders, have stronger research and public speaking skills, and report increased self-efficacy (Suleiman et al., 2006). Other projects have demonstrated that engaging in YPAR improves psychological empowerment, resulting in improvements in prosocial behavior, academic effort, and responsible decision making (Zimmerman et al., 2018). Due to the investment of resources and time to implement YPAR, at times evaluations fall short of exploring the impact of the youth-designed projects and YPAR participants (Wilson et al., 2008).
Existing evidence about YPAR with early adolescents is slim, but some exemplars have been documented. One YPAR project with early adolescents reported changes among perceptions and actions of the teacher and principal involved in a research project, but did not report on effects for participants (Ozer et al., 2010). Similarly, facilitators from another YPAR project with this age group reported that the project increased opportunities for youth to engage with their social environment, participate in critical analysis and reflection, and create social change (Wilson et al., 2007). In contrast, a third YPAR program with very young adolescents reported increases in participants’ ability to collaborate effectively with others, bridge social divisions, facilitate the empowerment of other students, mobilize their social networks, and leave behind a legacy (Langhout et al., 2014). Although participants also reported that they benefited from being perceived as mentors and leaders by adults and other students in the school, the research did not explore this from the perspective of others in the school (Langhout et al., 2014). In line with an ecological perspective of development, most of the impact of YPAR with early adolescents has focused on very proximal interpersonal and intrapersonal indicators. Promising results point to benefits to early adolescents of engaging in YPAR, and gaps in existing research highlight the ways in which additional evidence would help us to better understand the impact. Ideally, this evidence should be longitudinal and comparative across age groups to capture the unique benefits of engaging in action research during this dynamic window of adolescence.
Middle Adolescents (15- to 19-Year-Olds)
Compared with early adolescents, middle adolescents often have a stronger sense of self-identity and have established strong passions and convictions for specific causes (Erikson, 1994). In addition, they have many cognitive skills and capacities that facilitate successful engagement in research. Paradoxically, middle adolescence is also marked by increases in health-harming negative risk-taking. For example, the rate of suicide among 15- to 19-year-olds is more than 11 times than that of 10- to 14-year-olds (Konchanek, Murphy, Xu, & Tejada-Vera, 2016). Middle adolescence also marks the emergence of multiple preventable health issues, including sexually transmitted infections, unintended pregnancy, and substance use disorders, as well as the onset of a wide range of mental health disorders. This points to some important changes in behavior during this developmental window.
Some early models informed by developmental science attributed the significant increase in negative risk-taking behavior in middle adolescence to a weak or immature cognitive control system (Cauffman & Steinberg, 1995). Newer models, pointing to the fact that much of the brain development associated with puberty has occurred by 15-year-olds (Sorensen et al., 2012), have highlighted a more complex picture of adolescent flexibility in cognitive engagement, which is highly dependent on the social and motivational context of decision making (Braams, van Duijvenvoorde, Peper, & Crone, 2015; Crone & Dahl, 2012; Nelson & Guyer, 2011; Pfeifer & Allen, 2012). By mid-adolescence, in calm contexts, adolescents exhibit cognitive control very similar to adults, but in emotional or socially arousing contexts often exhibit greater risk-taking (Chein, Albert, O’Brien, Uckert, & Steinberg, 2011; Smith, Chein, & Steinberg, 2014; van Hoorn, Fuligni, Crone, & Galván, 2016). The neurodevelopmental trajectory during middle adolescence of continued improvements in cognitive control and emotion regulation, combined with increased sensitivity to social and affective motivational cues, contributes to adolescents’ increased willingness to take both positive and negative risks, particularly in social contexts where adolescents are making novel decisions in elevated states of arousal and emotion (Steinberg, 2008; van Duijvenvoorde & Crone, 2013). Increases in cognitive capabilities also make this stage especially ripe for marginalized youth to benefit from YPAR projects that require youth to process complex social issues. One benefit of YPAR for marginalized youth may be increasing critical consciousness, which “describes how oppressed or marginalized youth learn to critically analyze their social conditions and act to change them” (Watts, Diemer, & Voight, 2011, p. 44). Critical consciousness is conceptualized in terms of three components: critical reflection, political efficacy, and critical action (Watts et al., 2011). As middle adolescents gain cognitive skills, they may be able to reflect deeply and critically on the complex issues they interact with through YPAR.
Although many neurodevelopmental changes related to rational decision making have begun to plateau during middle adolescence, social, emotional, and contextual factors continue to contribute to changes in adolescent behavior (Crone & Dahl, 2012). The increased prevalence of certain types of behaviors, such as sexual behavior, dating, risky driving, and drug and alcohol use, provides fodder for a breadth of action research projects. As many of these behaviors are novel during middle adolescence, research projects in these domains may be particularly relevant during this point in the developmental trajectory. During middle adolescence, most young people look like sexually mature adults, which has both benefits and challenges. In many contexts, physical maturation leads to young people’s experiences of increasing freedom, autonomy, and mobility. Secondary schools offer more independence, and young people are often able to navigate the world around them more independently. For many youth, social networks become increasingly distinct from their family. At the same time, the amplification of gender disparities accompanying sexual maturation can result in other young people experiencing increased restriction during this time. For example, in some communities or cultures, young women may have reduced freedom or mobility with the appearance of secondary sex characteristics and/or young men and women may be more segregated in sports, studies, and other activities (Schlegel, 1995). Similarly, in some contexts, adults may now perceive young men of color as dangerous and threatening, and thus, they may experience greater discrimination, including restrictions on their freedom and mobility (Noguera, 2003). The level of restriction middle adolescents face is often influenced by a complex set of factors such as gender, race, religion, and community safety (Schlegel, 1995).
These insights from developmental science have implications for thinking about engaging in action research during middle adolescence. On one hand, the enhanced cognitive control and increased skills, experiences, and capacities are exactly what make middle adolescents outstanding candidates for engaging in research and present projects with programmatic opportunities. Their enhanced sense of self and clarity about personal interests can motivate them to engage in projects that align with their passions and goals. Middle adolescents can also leverage valuable perspectives on their earlier adolescent experiences. These factors, coupled with increased independence, freedom, and autonomy, can also give them unique abilities to effectively navigate adult and youth contexts.
On the other hand, many of these facilitating factors can also serve as challenges. Many middle adolescents, and particularly youth of color, report increased discrimination, particularly from adults (Greene, Way, & Pahl, 2006), making it more challenging to establish authentic power sharing in research projects. Also, while middle adolescence is still a period of extensive identity exploration, it is also a period of identity stabilization (Luyckx, Klimstra, Duriez, Van Petegem, & Beyers, 2013). Compared with younger adolescents, increased clarity about self-identity may also come with less flexibility to explore new ideas and opportunities. Middle adolescents may have more established interests and be less motivated than early adolescents to engage in action research if they have not had earlier exposure. In addition, the amplification of gender roles is often significant among middle adolescents (Hill & Lynch, 1983), which may make working in mixed-gender teams more difficult and may require more work on the part of facilitators to correct harmful gender norms young people may have about engagement in science-informed inquiry (Riegle-Crumb, Moore, & Ramos-Wada, 2011).
Another challenge to YPAR with middle adolescents is that the motivation to get involved in scholarly activities, like research, may decline during this time. Indeed, research suggests that school engagement drops significantly across the adolescent years in low-, middle-, and high-resourced settings across the globe (Busteed, 2013; Patton, Azzopardi, Kennedy, Coffey, & Mokdad, 2017; Wang & Eccles, 2012). This may make it more difficult to recruit secondary school students to participate in action research. However, evidence suggests that the experience of participating in a meaningful and challenging curricular project and forming significant relationships with other peers and nonparental adults may promote lasting changes in positive well-being across adolescence (Christenson et al., 2008; Huebner, Gilman, Reschly, & Hall, 2009; Huebner, Suldo, Smith, & McKnight, 2004). Action research can provide these types of experiences. YPAR may be an especially powerful experience to maintain school engagement among marginalized youth by providing the opportunity to grapple with and confront issues of oppression (Cammarota & Fine, 2010) and develop positive academic self-conception (Strobel, Osberg, & McLaughlin, 2006).
Evidence of Effects of Action Research on Middle Adolescents
For middle adolescents, research on YPAR has looked at a broader range of outcomes aligned with the increased autonomy, independence, and cognitive development that most middle adolescents experience. The proximal issues that affect adolescents can also influence the broader community. For example, gentrification, cultural erasure, racialization, and community policing all emerged as focal issues in a YPAR project focused on place and attachment with middle adolescents (Estrella & Kelley, 2017). Compared with early adolescents, the YPAR projects with this age group often include connecting the social issues adolescents experience in their immediate world to broader issues such as sexual health, cyberbulling, dropping out of school, racial/ethnic health disparities, and stress (Ozer & Douglas, 2013). Existing literature examines the impact of action research on key youth development factors, including autonomy, self-esteem, youth engagement, and academic achievement in middle adolescence. A recent study demonstrated that compared with nonparticipating peers with similar demographics and baseline scores, high school students (predominately low-income youth of color) who enrolled in a year-long elective YPAR course had improved reading achievement and attendance rates (Voight & Velez, 2018). Similarly, a 5-year cluster-randomized experimental study in U.S. public high schools found that compared with students engaging in direct service, peer mentoring, and peer education, YPAR participants had improved standardized test scores and reported increases in participatory behavior, sociopolitical skills, and motivation to influence their schools and communities (Ozer & Douglas, 2013). Another study suggests that action research can foster a pipeline of new scientists and researchers. In a sample from rural West Virginia, 48 of the 50 twelfth-grade action research participants enrolled in college the following year (Branch & Chester, 2009).
Other studies examine action research participation with regard to nonacademic outcomes, reflecting the expanding ecological influence associated with advancing age. For example, participation in voluntary YPAR classes at school motivated novel student–adult interactions, expanded students’ levels of professionalism, and enabled the diversification of student voice (Ozer & Wright, 2012). Other school reform projects in high schools that promote student voice have been found to help to build agency, belonging, and competence (Mitra, 2004). Participating in YPAR has also led to enhanced sociopolitical awareness, sense of control, hopefulness, and community participation skills (Morsillo & Prilleltensky, 2007). Finally, among 12- to 18-year-old girls who had lost someone to violence, deportation, or incarceration, engaging in an action research project enhanced feelings of social support and agency in the face of their losses (Christiansen, 2010).
Although systematic empirical evidence is sparse, examples of action research projects suggest that youth involved in projects benefited from leadership opportunities, self-confidence, and career-building skills (Flicker et al., 2010; Soleimanpour, Brindis, Geierstanger, Kandawalla, & Kurlaender, 2008; Stewart, Riecken, Scott, Tanaka, & Riecken, 2008), and/or became empowered or energized about their specific cause such as recreational space to increase environmental health (Downs et al., 2009), reducing school violence (Downs et al., 2009), or health promotion (Findholt, Michael, & Davis, 2011; Necheles et al., 2007). However, there is much left to be understood about the benefits of engaging in action research for positive youth development during the high school years.
Older Adolescents/Emerging Adulthood (20-24 Years Old)
Although engaging older adolescents/emerging adults in action research is very similar to engaging adults, we include this group, given unique developmental opportunities and challenges for older adolescents compared with young adolescents, middle adolescents, and adults. This period of life is usually defined by identity exploration, instability, self-focus, possibilities, and feeling “in between” (Arnett, 2004). During this developmental transition, young people begin to realize many of the rights, roles, and responsibilities of adults. At the same time, this latest stage of adolescence is also distinct from adulthood in important ways. Many theories highlight important components of identity development that emerge during the transition to adulthood in domains such as political affiliation, religion and spirituality, and sexuality that may be particularly relevant to the context of action research (Abo-Zena & Pavalow, 2016; Schwartz, Zamboanga, Luyckx, Meca, & Ritchie, 2013). It is also an important period of role transition where many young people who attended college cease being students and become employees and experience some level of financial independence. While providing opportunity, this also creates vulnerability. For example, 20- to 24-year-olds who are in the U.S. labor force have the highest rate of poverty compared with all other adult populations (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017). In addition, although the brain is more developed than earlier in adolescence and cognitive capacity is high, this third decade of life remains a time of important neural flexibility that may make it optimal for having certain types of experiences and learning specific skills, particularly those associated with assuming adult roles and responsibilities (Weinberger, Elvevåg, & Giedd, 2005). In fact, because of the configuration of social, contextual, and developmental factors, late adolescence may be a particularly opportune time for certain types of life experiences such as those offered by action research—particularly those offered at the highest level of the engagement ladder (Romer, Reyna, & Satterthwaite, 2017). Due to the rights and privileges accessible to them, older adolescents also have the greatest potential for generating significant impact on higher levels of their ecological context. Examples such as the youth activism in the “Arab Spring” political movements (Anderson, 2011) and the extensive efforts to engage young voters in many countries (e.g., Henn, Weinstein, & Forrest, 2005) reflect youths’ potential power to influence local and global policy. Reflecting the trajectory initiated in middle adolescence, the transition to adulthood is also a vulnerable time for preventable negative trajectories. For example, sexually transmitted infections peak among 20- to 24-year-olds compared with any other time in the life course, and unintentional injury, suicide, and homicide, similar to middle adolescence, remain the three leading causes of death (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017).
The developmental assets of late adolescence—high cognitive capacity and adult-like behavior—present opportunities for older adolescents to benefit from engaging in action research. Facilitating action research projects with older adolescents requires less tailoring of standard community engagement strategies, and older adolescents can potentially integrate with and interact more easily with adult researchers and partners compared with younger adolescents. Older adolescents are also more independent and may require less supervision, which can help reduce the resources needed to effectively support the project. For example, older adolescents in Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Tanzania engaged in three related YPAR projects as part of a transdisciplinary effort to increase contraceptive use among 15- to 19-year-olds—Adolescents 360 (https://www.a360learninghub.org). Although the intervention target aimed at middle adolescents (15-19 years old), social, cultural, and legal constraints led the project partners to determine that older researchers were a better match for the project goals than younger adolescents.
The same factors that facilitate engaging older adolescents in YPAR can also create challenges in achieving some of the desired outcomes of youth engagement. Older adolescents are often more socialized to adult ways of thinking and may be less inclined to challenge the ideas and assumptions of other adults engaged in the process. Given the increased bias and discrimination that many people experience as they enter late adolescence (Greene et al., 2006), older adolescents may also face more structural barriers than younger adolescents when engaging in advocacy work and translating research findings into action. In addition, youth of color may engage in YPAR projects related to institutional racism or health disparities in their local community while coping with individual-level stressors linked to being a member of an ethnic/racial minority group. Furthermore, although social transitions occur throughout adolescence, the transitions occurring in late adolescence (e.g., employment, housing, social groups, family status) can profoundly affect a young person’s capacity and interest in engaging in YPAR (Vespa, 2017).
Evidence of Effects of Action Research on Older Adolescents
The evidence of effects of action research on developmental outcomes for older adolescents is sparse. In their thorough review of published studies that involve youth in CBPR, Jacquez and Colleagues (2013) found 56 articles that include youth as partners, but only seven included youth from the 20- to 24-year-old age group (Mendenhall, Harper, Stephenson, & Haas, 2011; Morsillo & Prilleltensky, 2007; Snider, Kirst, Abubakar, Ahmad, & Nathens, 2010; Trinidad, 2009), and youth outcomes are only documented in one (Morsillo & Prilleltensky, 2007). The one that included youth outcomes reported gains among participants in the following individual outcomes: self-expression, assertiveness, and feelings of liberation (Morsillo & Prilleltensky, 2007). The other three studies employing CBPR with older adolescents reported on the process and potential of CBPR as a method for research (Johnson, Bartgis, Worley, Hellman, & Burkhart, 2010; Mance, Mendelson, Byrd, Jones, & Tandon, 2010; Mooney-Somers & Maher, 2009). Other examples of action research projects with this age group exist (e.g., Abo-Zena & Pavalow, 2016); however, empirical evidence of gains in individual outcomes does not appear in publications. In addition, youth development outcomes are not collected as frequently in studies (whether referred to as YPAR, PAR, or CBPR) with this age group (whether referred to as early adults, emerging adults, young adults, or late adolescents) compared with younger adolescent age groups.
Leveraging Developmental Science to Improve YPAR
A developmental science lens has great potential for enhancing the precision of the impact of action research projects, and future research on the impact of YPAR should explicitly test a developmental framework. Both assessing the costs and benefits for the youth researchers and assessing the quality and contributions of YPAR projects with youth at different developmental stages are vital to move the field forward. For example, when efficiency is the primary goal of a YPAR project, engaging older youth may require less capacity building among the youth participants and adult allies and be the best course of action. In contrast, when the primary goal of YPAR is to serve as an intervention aiming to build the skills and capacities of the youth researchers and enhance the climate of a school, younger adolescents may be a more appropriate match. In either case, as highlighted above, the impact of engaging in research on youth, while clearer for middle adolescents, is lacking for early and late adolescents. A developmentally informed research agenda including an understanding of the unique impact of participating in action research at different points during adolescence holds great promise for enhancing its potential. Developmental precision can enhance the next phase of YPAR research and inform evidence on the impact of youth engagement for multiple stakeholders.
Effectively engaging young people of any age in YPAR requires tailoring training, methods, and approaches that match the developmental capacities of the young researchers (Merves et al., 2015). Reciprocally, the scope, topic, and duration of the project may inform the age or developmental stage of the youth who are most appropriate to engage in the work. Much can be gained from evaluating the impact of integrating emerging insights from developmental science about the types of learning that may be most effective for different age groups on YPAR projects. For example, a project aiming to improve the design of middle school must discern whether it is more valuable to engage middle schoolers, who have current relevant experience and more investment in the outcome, and/or high school students, who have retrospective insights and potentially more enhanced academic or critical reflection skills. Both capacities may be equally valuable, yet differentially beneficial. In addition, the type of impact and lastingness of the research experience may differ for the youth depending on their stage of life and development.
Clearly, there is no one answer for when engaging youth in action research is best for the youth researchers or the potential outcome of the project, but developmental science offers a framework for establishing a research agenda to offer more precision to planning for YPAR projects. Table 2 offers some important developmentally informed questions to consider during the planning or design of action research projects. Further empirical research is needed to better understand the impact of participating in research on young people in different developmental stages. Using a developmental science lens to identify the opportunities and challenges presented by various developmental stages can enhance our understanding of the impact of action research and maximize the benefits to both youth and resulting programs and policies.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
