Patterns of Organized Activity Participation in Urban, Early Adolescents

Abstract

This study examines patterns of organized activity and their concurrent association with academic achievement, problem behavior, and perceived adult support in a sample of urban, early adolescent, middle school students (mean age = 13.01; N = 2,495). Cluster analyses yielded six activity profiles: an uninvolved group ( n = 775, 31.1%), a multiply involved group ( n = 247, 9.9%), a sports group ( n = 469, 18.8%), a church group ( n = 486, 19.5%), a school and community clubs group ( n = 278, 11.1%), and a community clubs and sports group ( n = 240, 9.6%). These profiles are differentially associated with academic achievement, problem behavior, and adult support. While some form of organized activity is generally associated with more positive outcomes, the school and community and community and sports profiles also report the highest levels of delinquency, drug use, and school suspensions. Results support the utility of using person-centered approaches to studying youth-organized activities.

Disaggregating behavioral and psychological components of religious and spiritual development across adolescence: Variations by geographic location.

“…"How often do you attend religious services") and community service (5 items; e.g. "How often do you volunteer to clean up your neighborhood, school or community") were assessed using subscales of an organized activity involvement measure based on previous research (Metzger, 2009). Each were rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (very often).…”

Trajectories of organized activity participation among urban adolescents: Associations with young adult outcomes

“…Opportunities to build assets may help offset the negative consequences of risk exposure, in the short and long term (Fredricks & Simpkins, 2012). Most researchers examining longer term effects of OAP have explored these relationships among primarily White, middle class or nationally representative samples, with some exceptions (see Metzger, Crean, & Forbes-Jones, 2009;Pedersen, 2005). Thus, the long-term effects of participation among youth living in urban, disadvantaged contexts is largely unknown.…”

Sports Investment, Beliefs about Food-related Behaviors, and Engagement in Problematic Eating Behaviors during Adolescence

“…Finally, adolescents' involvement in additional "non-sports" activities may moderate the associations between sports investment and engagement in problematic under-and over-eating behaviors. Although youth are highly involved in sports during this age period, adolescents are also involved in other organized activities at high levels (e.g., Metzger, Crean, & Forbes-Jones, 2009).…”

“…In order to create categories representing patterns of organized activity involvement for use as a moderating variable, person-centered approaches were utilized. Participants' involvement in distinct types of organized activities (i.e., sports, church, arts/music, community clubs, school clubs, and volunteering) was submitted to a two-stage cluster analysis involving both agglomerative (i.e., Ward's method) and partitioning/iterative (i.e., K-means) approaches (Henry, Tolan, & Gorman-Smith, 2005;Metzger et al, 2009). Through Ward's hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis, dendograms and external criteria, including centroid graphs and pseudo-F scores, were examined to determine the number of organized activity clusters present (Henry et al, 2005).…”

“…Overall, involvement in sports in conjunction with other organized activities, specifically church activities, has the potential to lead to positive food-related outcomes during adolescence, while participation in club-related activities in addition to organized sports may result in negative eating behaviors. These findings call for further examination of organized activity contexts simultaneously as different patterns of involvement may provide youth with distinct developmental experiences (e.g., Ferris et al, 2013;Metzger et al, 2009).…”