There is growing recognition
of the need to develop acceptable measures of adolescent's positive attributes
in diverse contexts. The current study evaluated the measurement properties of
the Five Cs model of Positive Youth Development (PYD) scale (Lerner et al., 2005) using a sample of 672 Irish adolescents.
Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that a five-factor model provided a good
fit to the data. The internal reliability and construct validity of the Five Cs
model were supported, with character the strongest predictor of contribution,
while connection was the strongest predictor of risky-behaviors. Notably,
confidence was significantly negatively related to contribution, and positively
related to risky-behaviors. Multi-group hierarchical nested models supported
measurement invariance across early- (11–14 years) and late- (15–19 years)
adolescent age groups, with partial invariance found across gender. Younger
adolescents evinced higher PYD, while PYD was associated with higher
contribution and lower depression and risk-behaviors across all groups. The
application of the PYD framework as a measure of positive functioning across
adolescence is discussed…
While previous research examined the age invariance of the
Five Cs model of PYD (e.g., Geldhof et al.,2013), no research has assessed the
functioning of the Five Cs model across gender. The current study observed
metric and partial scalar invariance across males and females. This indicates
that, while the indicators of each of the “Cs” function the same for males and
females (i.e., metric invariance), a number of indicators differed in terms of
the level of scoring. Most notably, all indicators of the Caring factor were
found to differ across gender. This suggests that differences in mean caring
scores between genders may be biased due to males scoring on a lower range of
scores. The result of this is that males and females may be equally empathetic,
but females may score higher on the current measure due to gender bias on a
number of items. The finding of invariance at the metric (weak) level assures
that comparisons can be made for the caring subscale as to the relationships
between the factors (i.e., factor coefficients) across groups (Clench-Aas et
al., 2011). Caution
however, should be exercised in interpreting analyses involving comparison of
latent means of caring between groups (Clench-Aas et al., 2011). On the other
hand, the observed gender differences are in line with previous research
showing females score higher on kindness (Linley et al., 2007) and empathy (Litvack-Miller et al., 1997; McMullin and
Cairney, 2004).
Latent mean scores of PYD and the Five Cs were
also assessed, and indicated a number of differences across groups. For
instance, results indicated that females scored higher on the factors of
caring, character and connection, while males scored higher on the factors of
confidence and competence. This suggests that PYD may not manifest in a uniform
manner across gender groups. These discrete differences between males and females
on each of the Five Cs are in contrast to previous research that highlighted
females scoring consistently higher on all Five Cs (Lerner et al., 2008). However, the finding that females
scored higher on caring, character, and connection, and lower on competence and
confidence compared to males, is in line with previous research illustrating
significant gender typing by adhering to gender-role standards of behavior
(McMullin and Cairney, 2004; Linley et al., 2007). Latent mean differences were also
assessed across age groups. Younger adolescents were found to score higher on
caring, character, connection, and overall PYD scores. This indicates that PYD
appears to decline from younger adolescence to older adolescence. These results
concur with the findings of Harter (1998), who reported that many of the domains
of positive self-concept decrease over the early adolescence years. Thus, the
current findings were consistent with predicted developmental outcomes.
In sum, the Five Cs model of PYD was found to be
an adequate structural model to depict positive functioning in Irish
adolescence. In general, the PYD subscales were related to measures of
contribution and risky-behaviors in line with theoretically derived hypotheses,
and the PYD subscales (with the exception of caring) were able to discriminate
non-clinical (i.e., scores less than 16) and clinically significant depression
scores (i.e., scores above 16). The Five Cs measure was also found to be a
robust measure across younger and older adolescent age groups. Notably, a
number of gender differences were observed, indicating that PYD may manifest
differently across gender groups…
Full article at: http://goo.gl/i5W3e5
By:
School of Psychology,
National University of Ireland Galway (http://www.nuigalway.ie/psy/), Galway, Ireland
Edited by: Rosario Cabello, University of Granada, Spain
Reviewed by: Kristin A. Buss, Penn State, USA; Jason
Almerigi, Oakland Schools, USA
*Correspondence: Ronan J. Conway ; Email: moc.liamg@yawnocjor
More at: https://twitter.com/hiv
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