Positive Human Development

The AR-HDSC research team focuses on deepening knowledge about the measurement and predictive utility of Developmental Assets. Current initiatives include studies of Developmental Assets in the first decade of life, and the relationship of assets to academic achievement, risk behaviors and prosocial behavior. Two new major projects are designed to create new indicators of thriving among youth, and to catalyze a new line of scientific inquiry on child and adolescent spiritual development.

Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence

Funder: The John Templeton Foundation

Purpose: A global initiative that seeks to: (1) advance the scientific study of spiritual development of young people; (2) contribute to building an interdisciplinary, international field of scholarship; (3) strengthen practice across traditions and sectors; and (4) communicate with the public.

Status: From 2003 - 2005, Search Institute conducted a field-mapping project that examined the state of knowledge in the social sciences and in religious studies regarding spiritual development in childhood and adolescence. That review led to a second grant to establish the Center for Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence. For more information, visit the center's website: www.spiritualdevelopmentcenter.org.

Duration: 2006 - 2008

Findings: For regular updates, visit the center's website www.spiritualdevelopmentcenter.org.

Developmental Assets in the First Decade of Life

Funder: Donald W. Reynolds Foundation

Purpose: To contribute new knowledge to the applied development field's understanding of positive development in all children by conceptualizing and defining positive development for young people in the first decade of life.

Status: Based on extensive literature review and expert consultation, the framework of Developmental Assets for young people in middle childhood has been comprehensively articulated. Based on this conceptualization, a new survey measuring Developmental Assets among children in grades 4-6—Me and My World—has now been developed. Pilot testing of the survey occurred in 2001 and 2002, field tests were conducted in 2003, and a final version of the survey was made available for public use in January 2004.

In addition, the developmental landscape has been described that contributes during the K-grade 3 period to children’s experience of assets during middle childhood. Initial steps also have been taken to identify how the assets framework may usefully contribute to understanding and nurturing the positive development of children aged 3 to 5.

Duration: 2000-2003

Findings: The assets survey for 4th-6th graders, Me and My World, became available in January 2004. A Technical Manual reporting on the development, psychometric quality, and use of the survey was also released at that time.

In addition, the major publication, Coming into Their Own, describes the research base for the assets framework. Covering hundreds of studies of elementary-age children, the book highlights the common threads that connect development across the elementary and adolescent years. It also shows how unique features of each life stage and varying contexts children experience affect particular developmental processes differently in middle childhood as compared to other stages of development.

Research on Assets and Academic Achievement

Funder: Various sources

Purpose: To more deeply investigate the relation of Developmental Assets to indicators of academic success, especially "objective" indicators such as grades, GPA, class rank, and standardized test scores. Both concurrent and longitudinal data collection are planned.

Status: Two studies have been completed. In a study of a suburban, ethnically more homogeneous sample, students’ assets in year 1 of the study contributed significantly to year 1 achievement, in both self-reported and actual grades. Longitudinal data relating assets to subsequent achievement showed that early asset levels were positively related to GPA three years later. In the second study, with a more urban, ethnically diverse sample, asset levels were related to student exposure to school-business partnerships, and both assets and partnership experiences were associated with students’ self-reported grades and attendance. Additional data on the relation of assets to both self-reported and actual student grades were collected as part of the development of the assets survey for middle childhood and showed that higher asset levels generally were positively related to concurrent GPA scores.

Duration: Ongoing

Findings: A paper on the school-business partnership study will be published in the journal, Urban Education, in 2005. See also the Web-based research publication, Search Institute Insights & Evidence, for an article on student achievement, as well as the Me and My World Technical Manual.

Thriving Indicators Project

Funder: The Thrive Foundation for Youth, W.T. Grant Foundation, Walton Family Foundation, and Campbell Family Foundation

Purpose: Under the leadership of the Office of the President, and with the strategic partnership of the Thrive Foundation for Youth, AR staff are working with leading researchers at Tufts University, Stanford University, and Fuller Theological Seminary to break new ground in defining and measuring “thriving” among young people. We will pursue answers to questions such as: How do young people meet their personal goals while doing more than staying out of trouble, but instead also being on track for a hopeful future and contributing to the common good of their communities and society? What are the key dimensions of thriving that describe such young people? How can one tell if a young person is thriving? How might thriving indicators be different for young people in different contexts? Ultimately, we will be developing tools for the assessment of thriving in thousands of communities in order to promote thriving among young people.

Status: Planning occurred over 2001 and 2002, with the project officially launched in October 2002. In the first 18 months, several projects were undertaken to learn how various constituencies—scholars, practitioners, and American adults and youth—define thriving, in order to describe the “universe” of thriving. Subsequently, a small number of key dimensions of thriving are being identified as exemplifying and representing the thriving universe, and assessment tools will be built around those dimensions.

Duration: 2003-2006

Findings: See the November 2004 issue of the Journal of Early Adolescence, as well as the October 2004 release of the Encyclopedia of applied developmental science, for several articles on thriving in adolescence.

Exploring the Science and Theology of Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence

Funder: The John Templeton Foundation

Purpose: This 18-month project (2003-2004) is designed to lay a foundation for ongoing, long-term efforts to advance knowledge and application in spiritual development during childhood and adolescence.

Status: Visit the project Web page, where you can sign up to receive regular updates.

Duration: July 2003 through December 2004

Findings: Two books are being developed with the findings from this project. The first will be The Handbook of Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence (to be published by Sage Publishers). The second will be Religious Perspectives on Spiritual Development among Children and Adolescents (publisher TBA). Anticipated publication is 2005.

Developmental Assets in St. Louis Park: A Multi-Year Community Study

Funder: Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, as part of its support for Search Institute’s Healthy Communities • Healthy Youth initiative.

Purpose: Beginning in 1997, Search Institute partnered with the Children First initiative in St. Louis Park, Minnesota in a multiyear study of Developmental Assets among 6th-12th grade youth. This study is unique in measuring Developmental Assets longitudinally (1997, 1998 and 2001) and in linking young people's asset profiles to their actual school records. This study offers important new insights into the patterns of Developmental Assets through adolescence as well as examinations of the power of Developmental Assets across time.

Status: Three waves of data collection have been completed, and an initial report was released by Children First. Additional analyses and reporting continue on an ongoing basis.

Duration: This study began in 1997 and continued with data collection in 1998, 2001, and 2003. Additional data collection and analyses are pending.

Findings: Findings from the first three data collections (1997, 1998, 2001) were released in May 2003 in a report titled Signs of Progress in Putting Children First (PDF). Longitudinal analyses of the relation of assets to GPA were published in the October 2003 issue of Search Institute Insights & Evidence.

Positive Youth Development: Advancing the Field's Intellectual and Scientific Foundations

Funder: The Lilly Endowment, Inc.

Purpose: To advance the field of positive youth development through a series of writing and dissemination projects that will synthesize the best research in the field and make it available for other scholars, policy makers, and practitioners.

Status: An extensive literature review on youth development is underway, and an electronic newsletter is being piloted to determine whether it is a viable and valuable resource for the field. In addition, several academic books are in development as part of the Search Institute Series on Developmentally Attentive Communities and Society.

Duration: 2003-2004

Findings: Information from this project will be available through three channels:

1. The electronic publication, Search Institute Insights & Evidence.

2. Books in the academic book series, Search Institute Series on Developmentally Attentive Communities and Society, which is published by Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.

3. A chapter in the next edition of the Handbook of Child Psychology. See Benson, P.L., Scales, P.C., Hamilton, S.F., & Sesma, A. Jr. (2004). Positive youth development: Theory, research, and application. In W.W. Damon & R.M. Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology, volume 1, theoretical models of human development. New York: John Wiley.

Cultivating Adolescents’ Other-Regarding Virtues: The Developmental Pathways to Unlimited Love

Funder: The Institute for Research on Unlimited Love

Purpose: This investigation focuses on the growth and development of adolescents’ prosocial or other-regarding dispositions and behaviors. Using the St. Louis Park longitudinal data set, the primary emphases are the behavioral pathways (e.g., respondents involvement in volunteering at each of the three points in time) and the internal and external Developmental Assets that are associated with the varying patterns of prosocial behaviors.

Status: Phase 1 of the project, which was devoted to development of measures of other-regarding dispositions (e.g., helping motivations and values, empathy and concern for dissimilar others) and external assets (e.g., caring families, supportive schools, supportive neighbors and parents’ involvement in the child’s school) from the Search Institute Profiles of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors survey items, has been completed. Phase 2 of the project is currently underway and a variety of preliminary analyses have been conducted. In addition, graphs of prosocial behaviors (volunteering, and helping friends and neighbors) by cohort, grade, and gender have been created. Finally, current analyses include structural equation modeling and latent class analysis to undercover the developmental pathway or pathways to other-regarding dispositions and behaviors.

Duration: January 2003 – June 2004

Findings: Complete findings to be available summer 2004; partial findings to be included in a future issue of Search Institute Insights & Evidence, scheduled for winter 2004.