Comparing Socioemotional Outcomes for Early Adolescents Who Join After School for Internal or External Reasons

Abstract

Students’ reason for joining after school programs can be categorized into two groups: self-joined (internal orientation) or other-joined (external orientation stemming from parents, teachers, etc.). Drawing upon Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985), we tested whether students’ reason to join an after school program related to proximal and distal socioemotional outcomes (i.e., autonomy, perceived trust in staff, self-efficacy, and prosocial behavior) in 277 low-income, early adolescents (sixth through eighth graders) participating in an after school program. Within the context of an external evaluation of a large after school program, student surveys were administered at the beginning and end of the school year to assess change over time in socioemotional outcomes. After controlling for gender, compared to other-joined students, self-joined students demonstrated significantly higher autonomy, self-efficacy, and prosoical behaviors both initially and over time. However, students who switched their reported motivation for joining from self-joined at pretest to other-joined at posttest significantly decreased socioemotional ratings compared to all other student groups. Implications for youth development researchers, evaluators, and after school practitioners are discussed.

Keywords

after school programs socioemotional development evaluation

The need for after school programming continues to grow with approximately seven million children across the country with no place to go after school. The safety and well-being of children after school is a serious concern as evidenced by reports that 22% of all violent crime with juvenile victims occurs between 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. when children are out of school (Office of Juvenile Justice, 2006). It is during these hours unsupervised children may also engage in dangerous and risky behaviors such as experimentation with drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and sex (Newman, Fox, Flynn, & Christeson, 2000). To help address these concerns, after school programs have burgeoned in recent years. However, the success of after school programs depends largely on their ability to recruit and retain participants as well as demonstrate a corresponding positive impact on the development of children. Unfortunately, many after school programs and practitioners continually struggle to attract students and keep them engaged, often having to overcome numerous barriers to retention (e.g., desire to hang out with friends, need to work, family responsibilities, disinterest, and transportation difficulties; Lauver, Little, & Weiss, 2004). In a report by Harvard Family Research Project, Lauver and colleagues (2004) contended that at-risk youth are “least likely to sign up for OST (out of school time) programs and are significantly more likely than others to drop out of programs” (p. 7).

The challenges of recruiting and retaining youth are influenced by several factors; however, one important factor that is often overlooked in after school evaluations is students’ reason for joining the program. Research suggests that students participate in after school programs because of friends (Fredricks et al., 2002), parents (Brown, Frankel, & Fennell, 1989), to help prepare them for college (Lauver & Little, 2005), perceived enjoyment in the program, or a combination of many reasons. Based upon a recent review examining after school activity and youth development, Mahoney, Harris, and Eccles (2006) report that an overwhelming number of adolescents choose after school activities because of intrinsic reasons (e.g., enjoyment, building competencies, social connection to peers or activity leaders), while very few “participat[e] to please their parents, coaches, or teachers” (p. 6). These results apply most directly to the choice adolescents make about after school activities after they have already enrolled in an after school program. It is still unclear how adolescents’ reasons for joining an after school program influences their youth development outcomes over time.

There are important theoretical and practical reasons for studying adolescents’ reason to join after school programs. Theoretically, reason to join is similar to motivational orientation, which is a robust construct consistently linked with adolescents’ developmental outcomes (Dweck & Legget, 1988; Hansen & Larson, 2007; Wentzel, 1998). In fact, motivation research suggests that compared to adolescents who are extrinsically motivated, those who are intrinsically motivated demonstrate greater interest, enjoyment, and sustained attention in activities (Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde, & Whalen, 1993). Similarly, Beiswenger and Grolnick (2010) reported that compared to motivation that was identified (valued for personal importance), introjected (avoidance of affects, such as anxiety or guilt), or externally driven, autonomous motivation (akin to intrinsic motivation) was the only type of motivation related to early adolescents’ well-being. In addition, Hansen and Larson (2007) reported that students’ reasons for joining an after school program (i.e., enjoyment, peer affiliation, or future goals) differentially predicted students’ positive developmental experiences (i.e., initiative, teamwork, social skills, emotional regulation). Specifically, motivation stemming from enjoyment and future goals were relatively strong predictors of positive developmental experiences (e.g., emotional regulation, initiative, teamwork, social skills) even after controlling for program dosage, type of activity, students’ role in the program, and student-staff ratio.

Many of these motivational studies have been conceptualized using Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2000, 2008). SDT is a leading motivational theory that differentiates between autonomous motivation, or behaving with volition and choice, and controlled motivation, which is characterized as behaving in response to pressure or external demands toward achieving specific outcomes. SDT postulates that there are several distinct types of motivational tendencies that fall on a continuum of self-determination from amotivated to intrinsically motivated. Whereas amotivated individuals lack any intention for their behavior, externally motivated individuals feel varying degrees of volition regarding their behaviors, and intrinsically motivated individuals are drawn to act from personal satisfaction and enjoyment (Deci & Ryan, 2000).

SDT predicts that autonomous motivation is enhanced within environments that satisfy individuals’ three fundamental psychological needs: autonomy (feeling of choice), relatedness (supported by others), and competence. Depending on the extent to which these three psychological needs are met, individuals demonstrate inherent tendencies toward either self-determined, autonomous motivation or externally regulated, controlled motivation. Numerous studies across domains (schools, homes, and workplaces) have demonstrated that autonomy supportive environments (e.g., providing choice, opportunities for decision making, supporting initiative) enhance autonomous motivation while environments that thwart autonomy “yield less optimal forms of motivation and have deleterious effects on a wide variety of well-being outcomes” (Deci & Ryan, 2008, p. 15). Conversely, after school environments that offer opportunities for student choice, build meaningful relationships with staff, and promote competence within extracurricular activities, have the potential to enhance autonomous motivation and greater program engagement even for those students who may join because of external pressures (e.g., because their parents wanted them to join). The process of “integration of extrinsic motivation” illustrated in the organismic integration theory (OIT; Deci & Ryan, 1985), suggests that individuals with extrinsic motivation are able to internalize their actions making them personally important and aligned with their own values. Studies in school contexts using the OIT framework have found that the ability to internalize or integrate extrinsic motivation is associated with greater interest and effort, more engagement, and enhanced learning (Connell & Wellborn, 1991; Grolnick & Ryan, 1987; Ryan & Connell, 1989).

Increasing students’ engagement and motivation relates not only to enhanced well-being but also to increased persistence and retention in afterschool programs targeting at-risk youth. For example, Grolnick, Farkas, Sohmer, Michaels, and Valsiner’s (2007) evaluation of a 15-week afterschool science program indicated that students who dropped out were less engaged in science than students who stayed in the program. Vallerand, Fortier, and Guay (1997) reported that high school students with less initial autonomous motivation were more likely to drop out of high school than those with higher autonomous motivation. Furthermore, for low-income students, dropping out of after school programs may be necessary to meet family demands, such as needing to work or care for younger siblings (Harvard Family Research Project, 2004). These studies suggest that dropping out of afterschool programs may systematically relate to students’ initial motivation, engagement in the program, and/or familial/environmental characteristics. As such, retention in afterschool programs could be considered an important outcome variable when examining the role of motivational orientation in afterschool programs.

In addition to applying SDT in an afterschool context, this study is also important from a practical perspective. Motivational constructs need to permeate evaluation frameworks typically found in the after school literature, many of which include nonexperimental designs to track attendance, implementation, and outcomes (Scott-Little, Hamann, & Jurs, 2002). Using motivational variables as explanatory variables or as control variables to isolate the net effects of after school programs can potentially improve program implementation as well as the accuracy of findings. However, the inherent complexity of measuring the multiple facets of motivational orientation (i.e., intrinsic, integrated, identified, introjected, extrinsic, and/or amotivated) may overwhelm local evaluators and agencies in the administration, analysis, and interpretation of findings. After school programs often do not have the capacity to incorporate lengthy questionnaires into their evaluations, particularly given their mandatory reporting requirements from funders, nor do all evaluators possess the technical expertise and/or theoretical background to correctly analyze and interpret these findings (Stevahn, King, Ghere, & Minnema, 2005). Programs need measurement tools that are psychometrically valid, easy to use and administer, easy to interpret, and that provide actionable recommendations.

To encourage applied researchers, evaluators, and practitioners to use motivational theory to inform their work, the present study used students’ reason to join an after school program to explore how motivational orientation related to positive youth development and afterschool program benefits. This study tested a new, parsimonious method for measuring students’ reason for joining (stemming from motivational research) to examine if it moderated socioemotional outcomes for early adolescents. In particular, we examined whether students’ reason for joining an after school program related to differences in proximal and distal socioemotional outcomes (i.e., autonomy, perceived trust, self-efficacy, and prosocial behavior) within the context of a middle school, after school program serving economically disadvantaged youth in schools located in Los Angeles, CA. We focused on these socioemotional outcomes because of their importance in the after school literature (Riggs & Greenberg, 2004), their theoretical alignment to SDT (Deci & Ryan, 1985), and to represent both proximal (directly influenced by program participation such as autonomy and trust in staff) and distal outcomes (such as self-efficacy and prosocial behavior) typically present in the after school evaluation literature. Thus, if reason to join is a valid conceptualization of autonomous/controlled motivation, then the socioemotional outcomes aligned to SDT should be particularly sensitive to differences between students who are self-or other-joined.

We predicted that compared to early adolescents (sixth to eighth grade) who joined for external reasons (other-joined), students who joined for internal reasons (self-joined) would have significantly higher levels of proximal and distal socioemotional outcomes at posttest. More positive outcomes are expected for students who join for internal reasons because autonomous or intrinsic motivation has been consistently linked to enhanced social development and well-being (Beiswenger & Grolnick, 2010; Hansen & Larson, 2007). Furthermore, for those students who initially joined for external reasons, we expected that their socioemotional outcomes would change over time and show a significant increase as a function of receiving services from an afterschool program designed to support students’ needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence. Additionally, students who join for internal reasons should also increase their socioemotional outcomes and demonstrate this change over time because of their inherent intrinsic motivational tendency.

Overview of After School Evaluation

The results presented in this article came from an evaluation of an after school program in Southern California. The after school program started in 2002-2003 and over the past 10 years has grown from operating four sites in its first year to 36 today. Currently, the program serves approximately 13,000 middle and high school aged youth, many of whom live in some of the most impoverished communities.

Each after school site is located on a public or charter school campus and offers after school services daily from approximately 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. for the entire school year. Most of the schools have a relatively large school-day student population (average 1,600 students) and the after school programs draw exclusively from the school on which their site is located. The after school program utilizes a variety of classrooms and other spaces on the school grounds (e.g., fields, cafeteria, music rooms). Each site is overseen by a full-time site coordinator and has additional staff depending on the number of after school participants at each site.

The after school program includes both academic and enrichment components, each offered to students every day. The academic portion typically lasts for the first hour and provides students with academic support by helping them work on their homework and offering them additional educational enrichment activities. After academics, students have a snack as a large group and transition to enrichment. During this time students engage in extracurricular activities that are usually derived from students’ interests and matched with staff talents. There are typically four to eight different extracurricular activities offered at a time and the activities rotate every 8 weeks so that students are offered the opportunity to choose different enrichment activities across the school year. The program is conceptually well-aligned with SDT; it incorporates opportunities for choice (autonomy), opportunities to build relationships and connect with positive adult mentors (relatedness), and is designed to promote competence within specific domains (e.g., visual and performing arts, health, nutrition and physical fitness, leadership development, and community-service learning).

The program evaluation was comprehensive, covering several aspects of operations and including multiple stakeholders (e.g. students, parents, staff, etc.). The goal of the evaluation was to collect information on program implementation and outcomes to improve the program in subsequent years. Several methods of data collection were used, including student and staff surveys, parent, staff, and student focus groups, and archival attendance records. In all, data were collected across 15 schools, providing a substantial sample size for comparative statistical analysis. Data reported in this article were generated from the 2007-2008 program evaluation.

Method

Sample

For the purposes of this article, we selected only middle school students in Grades 6 (44%), 7 (28%), and 8 (28%) who attended the after school program in 2007-2008, with matched pretest and posttest student surveys, demographic data, and program attendance data available (N = 277 students; representing 58% of the total sample). Twenty-three percent of students were removed from the final matched sample because they were missing a pretest (they entered the program late in the year so they missed the pretest administration) or they attrited from the study and did not take a posttest (19%). Students who attrited from this sample were more likely to be male, African American, or join the program for external reasons (parents, teachers, etc.), suggesting a possible link between an external motivation to join and dropping out of the study. This left more Latino females who joined the program for internal reasons in the matched study sample. The final study sample included primarily females (59%) and Latinos (85%) who attended Title I schools (99%) and participated in the program 147 days on average in 2007-2008 (or 81% of total days offered). Approximately 58% participated for 2 years (in 2006-2007 and 2007-2008), 70% reported participating in an after school program during elementary school, and 23% participated in “other programs” than the after school program in the current study. Consequently, findings should be interpreted in relation to students who were consistent program participants.

Measures

Self-Joined and Other-Joined

One survey item was created to measure students’ self-perceived reason for joining the after school program. The item was designed to assess whether students’ reason for enrolling in the after school program stemmed from internal or external reasons, akin to intrinsic or extrinsic motivation. The survey item prompt was “Please tell us the No. 1 reason why you joined [after school program]. Circle only ONE answer.” There were five response options: (a) my parents wanted me to join, (b) my friends wanted me to join, (c) my teacher/principal wanted me to join, (d) I wanted to join, and (e) There was nothing else better to do. The first three response options were considered external reasons for joining, while the fourth option was considered an internal reason. The fifth option was included as an alternative to joining because of a person’s desires, akin to “amotivation” in the literature. Although students may join after school programs for multiple reasons, this survey item was intentionally designed to force students to choose the primary reason for joining the program. Given the evaluation design, this survey item was not changed from the pretest to posttest to keep wording consistent for comparison over time. Responses were collapsed and categorized into one dichotomous variable at pretest: self-joined (“I wanted to join”) and other-joined (all other responses).

Time Spent After School

One item on the survey measured what activities students did between 3:00 and 6:00 p.m. over the previous 2 weeks to determine whether this variable changed over time as a function of why students enrolled in the program. Since national reports suggest middle school students attend after school programs approximately 2 days per week (U.S. Department of Education, 2003), we assessed how students spent their time after school using the following 11 response options and encouraged students to check all that apply: (a) hanging out by themselves, (b) hanging out with friends, (c) spending time with parents, (d) being supervised by older siblings, (e) taking care of younger siblings, (f) attending the after school program being evaluated, (g) attending another after school program, (h) being supervised by a nonparent adult, (i) participating in school activities, (j) getting into trouble, (k) or an “other” activity.

Social Development

A student survey was used to measure several aspects of adolescents’ social development that theoretically would be influenced by their experience in the program. The survey was adapted by researchers from existing surveys to assess four constructs theoretically motivated by SDT and representative of both proximal and distal outcomes. The survey was administered as a pretest and posttest to all students in the sample.

Autonomy and influence

The autonomy and influence subscale was adapted from the Child Development Project of the Developmental Studies Center (2005) and included six items. The subscale measured students’ perceptions of how much autonomy and influence they had in decision making and planning related to their after school experience. Items measured the extent to which students felt they had autonomy in selecting after school activities (e.g., “I get to decide what activities I do during [the after school program]”) and planning with peers (e.g., “Students at [the after school program] plan things together”). Other items assessed whether students felt they had their voices and ideas heard (e.g., “Students have little chance to have their ideas heard in [the after school program]”) and opportunities to influence decisions about the program (e.g., “There is a student council here that gets to decide on some really important things” and “Students work with staff to decide what goes on in [the after school program]”). Students rated each item on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Cronbach’s alpha for this subscale was low (.56), but the subscale was kept in given the importance of examining autonomy development in relation to self- and other-joined students.

Trust in staff

The trust in staff subscale was also adapted from the Child Development Project of the Developmental Studies Center and included five items that assessed the extent to which students trusted program staff. Students were asked to report their perception of program staff as fair (e.g., “Program leaders in my classes always try to be fair,” “Program leaders in my classes punish kids without even knowing what really happened”) and caring (e.g., “Program leaders in my classes really care about me”). To maintain consistency in response options and to decrease the complexity of the survey, response options for this subscale were changed from a 3-point scale to a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Cronbach’s alpha for this subscale was .75.

Self-efficacy

The self-efficacy subscale was originally published by Walker and Arbreton (2004) and was subsequently adapted for use by Policy Studies Associates in the recent study of Best Practices in After school Programs (Vandell et al., 2006). The subscale consisted of seven items that measured whether students felt capable (e.g., “If I can’t do a job the first time, I keep trying until I can”), competent (e.g., “I handle new problems very well”), and persisted during challenges (“When I fail, it just makes me try harder”). Students rated each item on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Cronbach’s alpha for this subscale was .74.

Prosocial behavior

This study used a prosocial behavior scale developed by Scales, Benson, Leffert, and Blyth (2000). The subscale included five items that assessed the extent to which students were likely to engage in prosocial behavior, such as volunteering, working as a team, and improving their school. Students rated each items on a scale from 1 (not at all likely) to 5 (very likely). Cronbach’s alpha for this subscale was .82.

Procedure

Students were given a self-administered paper survey to determine their primary reason for joining the after school program and measure socioemotional outcomes. The survey was designed to collect information from students on range of topics that align with the after school program’s goals and relate to youth outcomes found in the after school evaluation literature. To provide the after school program with useful and meaningful information, the survey covered areas such as program participation, sense of safety, community service, educational aspirations, and program satisfaction, in addition to the variables examined in the present study.

All currently participating students were eligible to take the survey. The after school program obtained written consent from parents for having their child participate in data collection related to the evaluation prior to each student’s enrollment in the program. Before any data were collected from students in the present study, parents of all eligible students were sent a letter explaining the purpose of the survey, the type of content covered, and instructions for opting out of the study.

The survey was administered to students in a group format twice, once at the beginning of the school year (October 2007) and again at the end of the year (May 2008). Once written youth assent was obtained, program staff gave each student a paper and pencil survey that contained 43 items and took approximately 30 minutes to complete. Staff explained that students’ answers would remain confidential and directed students to answer the questions independently and honestly.

To facilitate a smooth and consistent administration of the surveys across all sites, program staff from each site attended a comprehensive on-site training lead by researchers. The training included a review of the survey items, discussion of how to correctly administer the survey, and a detailed step-by-step administration guide. Surveys were data entered by program staff and then sent to evaluators after student names were replaced with student ID numbers. Daily program attendance data and missing demographic information (not answered on the student survey) were obtained directly from the after school program at the end of the school year (in July 2008).

Results

Our results are organized into three different sections. First, we present the demographic profiles for self- and other-joined students as well as compare how these students spend their time after school at both pretest and posttest. Second, we conducted a Repeated Measures Analysis of Covariance to test our main hypotheses that self-joined students would have higher socioemotional outcomes than other-joined students and that socioemotional outcomes would increase over time for these two groups of students. Finally, given that a sizeable group of students switched their reason for joining from pretest to posttest, we explored how adolescents’ motivational switches impacted socioemotional outcomes over time for four groups of students, arrived by combining students’ reason to join at pretest and posttest: (a) those who stayed consistently internal (self-self); (b) those who changed from external to internal (other-self); (c) those who changed from internal to external (self-other), or (d) those who stayed external (other-other).

Profiles of Self-Joined and Other-Joined Students: Demographics and Time Spent After School

At pretest, there were 173 self-joined students (63%) and 103 other-joined students (37%). One student did not report their reason to join at pretest. At posttest, there were 150 self-joined students (54%) and 127 other-joined students (46%). However, at both pretest and posttest the majority of students joined because they wanted to (63% and 54%, respectively) and the most frequent other-joined response was because parents encouraged them to join (23% and 26%, respectively; see Table 1). Relatively few students joined at pretest because their friends, teachers, or principal wanted them to or because they had nothing else better to do after school.

Table 1.

Frequency of Students’ Pretest and Posttest Responses for Reasons for Joining an After School Program.

	Pretest^a	Posttest^b
Reason for joining after school program	f (%)	f (%)
My parents wanted me to join	63 (23%)	72 (26%)
My friends wanted me to join	18 (7%)	31 (11%)
My teacher/Principal wanted me to join	1 (0.4%)	0 (0%)
I wanted to join	173 (63%)	150 (54%)
There was nothing else better to do	21 (8%)	24 (9%)

Note: f = frequency.

n = 276.

n = 277.

As Table 2 displays, the majority of students were female across both groups; however, the self-joined group had marginally significantly more females and fewer males than the other joined group (χ² = 3.11, df = 1, p = .08). This is consistent with research by Fredricks and Eccles (2006) who suggested that girls participated in significantly more after school activities and had a greater breadth of activity types than boys. The grade-level distribution was also consistent across both self- and other-joined groups; the majority of students were in sixth grade (41% and 47%, respectively), followed by eighth grade (31% and 27%), and seventh grade (29% and 26%). The ethnic background of students was also comparable across groups given that most students were Latino (83% self-joined and 86% other-joined). Given these findings, we controlled for gender when estimating the effect of reason to join on socioemotional outcomes.

Table 2.

Characteristics of Students by Reason for Joining After School Program.

	Self-joined^a	Other-joined^b
	f (%)	f (%)
Gender^c
Male	54 (36%)	59 (47%)
Female	96 (64%)	68 (53%)
Grade^c
Sixth grade	61 (41%)	59 (47%)
Seventh grade	43 (29%)	33 (26%)
Eighth grade	46 (31%)	34 (27%)
Ethnicity^c
Latino	125 (83%)	109 (86%)
Other	21 (18%)	18 (14%)

Note: f = frequency.

n = 150.

n = 127.

n = 277.

The profile of self- and other-joined students differed by how students spent their time after school. As Table 3 displays, there were no significant differences between self- and other-joined students at pretest in relation to the frequency with which they reported being by themselves unsupervised (8% vs. 11%), with friends unsupervised (29% vs. 28%), with parents after school (37% vs. 45%), attending the after school program (77% vs. 83%), or taking care of younger siblings (18% vs. 16%). However, at posttest, self-joined students were significantly less likely than other-joined students to report that they were unsupervised with friends (20% vs. 30%, χ²(1, N = 266) = 4.2, p = .05) or they were taking care of younger siblings after school, 13% versus 24%, χ²(1, N = 266) = 4.5, p = .02, over the previous 2 weeks. Thus, self-joined students reported a 10% decrease in time they spent unsupervised with friends while other-joined students increased unsupervised time by 2%. Similarly, while self-joined students reported they watched younger siblings 5% less often at posttest than pretest, other-joined students reported an 8% increase in watching siblings after school. Finally, self-joined students reported attending the program 15% more at posttest than pretest compared to a 7% increase for other-joined students. Based on posttest responses, 22% of other-joined students reported “getting into trouble” as opposed to only 7% of self-joined students, χ²(1, N = 266) = 9.1, p = .003. Taken together, these results suggest that not only are other-joined students more often unsupervised with friends after school during one two-week period, they are also more likely to spend their unsupervised time getting into potentially adverse or dangerous situations.

Table 3.

Percentage of Time Spent at Pretest and Posttest in After School Activities for Self-Joined and Other-Joined Groups (N = 269).

	Pretest		Posttest
Time spent after school	Self-joined	Other-joined	Self-joined	Other-joined
By themselves unsupervised	8% (13)	11% (11)	7% (11)	13% (13)
With friends unsupervised	29% (50)	28% (29)	20% (32)	30% (31)*
With parents	37% (64)	45% (46)	26% (43)	28% (29)
Caring for younger siblings	18% (31)	16% (16)	13% (22)	24% (24)*
Attend after school program	77% (133)	83% (85)	93% (152)	89% (91)

Note: Frequency of activities is in parentheses. Students had the option of reporting engaging in multiple activities after school.

p < .05, with other-joined engaging in the activity more than self-joined students at posttest.

Differences in Socioemotional Outcomes Between Groups and Across Time

As displayed in Table 4, all of the socioemotional outcomes were significantly correlated with each other at both pretest and posttest, with slightly higher correlations among the proximal variables (autonomy and trust) than among the distal variables (self-efficacy and prosocial behavior). To test between group differences in socioemotional outcomes as well as the interaction between group (self and other-joined) and time (from pretest to posttest), four Repeated Measures Analysis of Covariances (ANCOVAs), controlling for gender, were conducted. Results indicated that self-joined students reported significantly higher autonomy, F(1, 272) = 21.27, p < .001, $η_{p a r t i a l}^{2}$ = .116, trust in staff, F(1, 272) = 39.35, p < .001, $η_{p a r t i a l}^{2}$ = .126, self-efficacy, F(1, 272) = 8.11, p =.005, $η_{p a r t i a l}^{2}$ = .029, and prosocial behavior, F(1, 272) = 23.80, p < .001, $η_{p a r t i a l}^{2}$ = .080, than other-joined students. Unexpectedly, there were no significant interactions present between group (self or other-joined) and time (pretest to posttest), indicating that the differences between self- and other-joined students’ socioemotional outcomes at pretest remained consistent over time.

Table 4.

Intercorrelations Among Socioemotional Outcomes at Pretest and Posttest.

	Proximal		Distal
Social outcome	Autonomy	Trust in staff	Self-efficacy	Prosocial
Autonomy	—	.558	.310	.412
Trust in staff	.519	—	.404	.316
Self-efficacy	.359	.546	—	.425
Prosocial	.504	.419	.457	—

Note: Pretest responses (N = 278) are above the line; posttest responses are below the line.

All correlations are significant at p < .001.

Socioemotional Outcomes for Students With Consistent or Inconsistent Reason to Join

Given that some students switched their reason for joining from pretest to posttest, the following analyses explored how switching motivation influenced socioemotional outcomes. We categorized students into four groups based on their pretest and posttest reason for joining: (a) self-self (n = 120; i.e., reported self-joined at pretest and posttest); (b) self-other (n = 50; i.e., reported self-joined at pretest and other-joined at posttest); (c) other-self (n = 27; i.e., reported other-joined at pretest and self-joined at posttest); and (d) other-other (n = 76; i.e., reported other-joined at pretest and posttest).

Descriptively, 44% of students maintained their internal orientation (self-joined at pretest and self-joined at posttest) while 28% maintained their external orientation (other-joined at pretest and other-joined at posttest). Of the consistently external group (other-other), approximately two-thirds indicated that they joined because of their parents at pretest (68%) and posttest (64%). Close to one third of the after school sample (77 students) changed their reported reason for joining the program from the beginning to the end of the year. Of this group, 50 students (18%) reported becoming more external (i.e., self-joined at pretest and other-joined at posttest), while 27 students (10%) indicated they became more internal (i.e., other-joined at pretest and self-joined at posttest). Of the group who became more internal (other-self), 44% reported joining at pretest because of their parents, friends (14%), or because they had nothing else better to do (40%). Of the group who became more external (self-other), 44% reported at posttest they joined because of their parents, their friends (30%), or because they had nothing else better to do (26%). These results suggest that while all three other-joined groups indicated parental pressure to attend the after school program, 25% more students in the other-other group indicated parent pressure to join than in the inconsistent groups. Furthermore, 40% of students in the other-self category reported at pretest that they joined because they had nothing else better to do.

To determine how adolescents’ consistent or inconsistent motivation (self-other or other-self) related to socioemotional outcomes over time (pretest to posttest), we replicated our four Repeated Measures Analysis of Covariances (ANCOVAs), controlling for gender. Results indicated significant omnibus group differences across each socioemotional outcome: autonomy, F(3, 268) = 13.89, p < .001, $η_{p a r t i a l}^{2}$ = .135, trust in staff, F(3, 268) = 20.84, p < .001, $η_{p a r t i a l}^{2}$ = .189, self-efficacy, F(3, 268) = 10.26, p < .001, $η_{p a r t i a l}^{2}$ = .103, and prosocial behavior, F(3, 268) = 10.56, p < .001, $η_{p a r t i a l}^{2}$ =.106. As displayed in Table 5, pairwise comparisons revealed that students in the consistent internal group (self-self) reported significantly higher scores on all socioemotional outcomes than students in the consistent external group (other-other) and had significantly higher trust in staff and self-efficacy than students who changed to external (self-other). Also, students who changed their orientation to internal (other-self) had higher self-efficacy and trust in staff than students who stayed consistently external.

Table 5.

Adjusted Means and Standard Errors on Socioemotional Outcomes by Four Reasons for Joining After School Program.

Reason to join
	Self-self (SS)^a	Other-self (OS)^b	Self-other (SO)^c	Other-other (OO)^d
Socioemotional Outcomes	$\bar{X}$ (SE)	$\bar{X}$ (SE)	$\bar{X}$ (SE)	$\bar{X}$ (SE)	Repeated measures ANCOVA (F)	Pairwise comparisons
Autonomy	−.079 (.008)	.243 (.017)	−.282 (.012)	−.016 (.010)	2.33*	S,S; S,O > O,O
Autonomy	−.079 (.008)	.243 (.017)	−.282 (.012)	−.016 (.010)	2.33*	S,S > O,S
Trust in staff	−.074 (.009)	−.017 (.020)	−.475 (.014)	−.142 (.012)	2.98**	O,S; SS; SO > O,O
Self-efficacy	.035 (.004)	.091 (.009)	−.369 (.007)	−.089 (.005)	3.85***	S,S; O,S > O,Ox
Self-efficacy	.035 (.004)	.091 (.009)	−.369 (.007)	−.089 (.005)	3.85***	S,S > S,O
Prosocial behaviors	−.032 (.002)	.337 (.002)	−.273 (.003)	−.239 (.002)	2.31*	S,S; S,O > O,O

Note: Reason for joining represents students’ internal (self) vs. external (other) motivation for enrolling in the program at pre- and posttest. The range of response for the social outcomes was 1 to 5. Means were adjusted for gender. F value represents the interaction between group and time (pretest to posttest).

n = 120.

n = 27.

n = 50.

n = 76.

p < .10. **p < .05. ***p < .01. RM

There were also significant interactions between group and time (pretest to posttest) for trust in staff, F(3, 268) = 2.976, p =.032, $η_{p a r t i a l}^{2}$ = .032, and self-efficacy, F(3, 268) = 3.846, p =.01, $η_{p a r t i a l}^{2}$ =.041, as well as marginally significant interactions for autonomy, F(3, 268) = 2.33, p =.07, $η_{p a r t i a l}^{2}$ =.025, and prosocial behavior, F(3, 268) = 2.31, p =.07, $η_{p a r t i a l}^{2}$ =.025, after controlling for gender. Results from post hoc paired t tests indicated socioemotional outcomes did not significantly change over time for students who stayed consistently internal or external. That is, students with a consistent internal orientation had socioemotional outcomes that were initially high and remained high across the year; conversely, students with a consistently external orientation had socioemotional outcomes that were initially low and remained low across the year. However, students who switched their motivation orientation to external over the year (self-other) exhibited a significant decrease from pretest to posttest in autonomy, t(49) = 2.25, p =.03, d = .32, trust in staff, t(49) = 3.76, p < .001, d = .53, and prosocial behavior, t(49) = 3.12, p =.003, d = .44. Students who changed their motivational orientation to internal over the year (other-self) tended to increase their autonomy and prosocial behavior, but given the small group size (n = 27) the results failed to reach significance (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Pretest to posttest mean differences in socioemotional outcomes for students with consistent and inconsistent reason for joining an after school program.

Together, these results suggest that socioemotional outcomes differed as a function of students’ reason to join at the beginning and end of the year, especially for those students who switched motivation from internal to external (self-other). Taken together, these results suggest that although all four groups of students had the same cumulative attendance greatly exceeding average after school participation rates for middle school students, consistent other-joined students (other-other) were less likely to feel efficacious, trust staff, or engage in prosocial behaviors compared to consistent self-joined students. Furthermore, students who changed their motivation from internal to external (self-other) significantly decreased their autonomy, trust in staff, and prosocial behavior across the year. These students, in particular, may be at increased risk for poorer socioemotional development and, as a result, may require more intense, targeted, engaging services from after school program providers.

Discussion

This study explored the relationship between students’ reason for joining an after school program (self-joined vs. other-joined) and youth socioemotional outcomes (e.g., autonomy, trust in staff, self-efficacy, and prosocial behavior) within the context of an urban middle school after school program serving economically disadvantaged, primarily Latino youth.

Consistent with our prediction, self-joined students reported significantly higher autonomy, self-efficacy, and prosoical behaviors both initially and over time compared to other-joined students. These findings align with existing afterschool and motivational literature indicating robust salutary effects for intrinsically motivated students (Hansen & Larson, 2007; Pearce & Larson, 2006). For example, Hansen and Larson (2007) found that 11th graders who were motivated to participate in an after school program because of enjoyment reported greater benefit from activities, such as positive developmental experiences related to initiative, emotional regulation, teamwork and social skills, positive relationships and building networks, and less negative experiences, such as peer pressure feelings of stress or exclusion from social activities. Similarly, Beiswenger and Grolnick (2010) reported that seventh graders intrinsically motivated for an after school activity (i.e., participated for the enjoyment) reported greater well-being and life satisfaction compared to peers who were driven by nonintrinsic motivations (e.g., external, introjected, identified). Furthermore, Grolnick, Ryan, and Deci (1991) found that more autonomous motivation (i.e., control understanding, perceived competence, and relative autonomy) significantly predicted elementary students’ academic performance as measured by standardized achievement test scores.

However, using students’ reason to join at pretest, both self- and other-joined students maintained their socioemotional outcomes over time. In line with organismic integration theory within SDT, we initially expected that other-joined students would be particularly responsive to enhanced socioemotional outcomes after participating in an after school program, especially one that offered services conceptually aligned with autonomy, relatedness, and competence. Nonetheless, there was no differential growth in other-joined students’ outcomes over time. This is particularly disconcerting given that other-joined students were such high program attenders, attending 3 to 4 days per week across the entire year, which exceeded the national average of less than 2 days per week (U.S. Dept. of Education, 2003). However, a recent article by Roth, Malone, and Brooks-Gunn (2010) suggests that the relationship between after school participation and academic, behavioral, or socioemotional outcomes is tenuous at best. Furthermore, after school program participation may not be expected to systematically increase students’ outcomes, especially if the quality of the program is weak or students are not connecting meaningfully to program services.

The more interesting results pertain to those students who switched their reason to join from pretest to posttest. We explored how socioemotional outcomes changed over time as a function of whether students consistently (self-self or other-other) or inconsistently reported their reason to join over time (self-other or other-self). Results suggested that students who reported an internal orientation to join at pretest yet reported an external orientation by posttest (self-other) significantly decreased their autonomy, self-efficacy, and prosocial behavior across the year while students in the other three groups maintained their socioemotional outcomes over time. The significant decreases in socioemotional outcomes for the self-other group is particularly concerning because it suggests that some students join afterschool programs with high levels of interest; yet over time they become less interested and engaged in activities. Recently, Dawes and Lawson (2011) conducted a qualitative study with 100 youth examining the process by which youth become engaged and motivated by participation in after school programs. For those students who experienced a “turning point” in their motivation, 86% reported developing a personal connection characterized by integration of personal goals with program goals. Thus, perhaps the self-other group was not able to establish a personal connection to the program activities, which in turn, resulted in decreasing socioemotional outcomes over time. Regardless, these disengaged students are vulnerable to poorer socioemotional outcomes, illustrating the need for programs to monitor students’ source of motivation across the year and more closely match personal goals with program goals to enhance motivation and socioemotional outcomes.

In addition, it is important to note that the students who were consistently externally motivated (other-other) throughout the year had significantly lower autonomy, trust in staff, and prosocial behavior than both the consistent internally motivated students (self-self) and the inconsistent external motivated students (self-other), and lower self-efficacy and trust in staff than students who switched their motivation to internal (other-self). One possible explanation for these findings might be that the other-other group’s external motivation to join stemmed largely from their parents, with approximately 65% reporting they joined because of their parents at pretest and posttest. This is in comparison to 44% of students in both the self-other group and the other-self group who reported they joined because of their parents, suggesting that parent pressure may have played a bigger role in the consistent externally motivated group. These results are consistent with previous studies that suggest parental control diminishes intrinsic motivation and subsequently decreases performance and well-being (Beiswenger & Grolnick, 2010; Grolnick, Deci, & Ryan, 1997).

Given these findings, there are several avenues for future research. First, equal attention should be paid to understanding not only how to enhance motivation and engagement in after school programs but also how to ensure some youth do not regress within these contexts. Although we are unclear regarding the mechanisms underlying this effect, understanding the processes involved with some students decreasing their socioemotional outcomes over time is an important next step in this research. Second, reason to join changed from pretest to posttest in this study. This suggests that motivational orientation should be measured at least two time points during the program, rather than just at the end as has been done in other studies (Mahoney et al., 2006). Furthermore, future research should ask students’ reason for joining at pretest and their reason for staying at posttest rather than the same question at both time points as was done in this study.

Third, additional research should explore using qualitative methods, similar to Pearce and Larson (2006) and Dawes and Larson (2011), to understand the construct of motivation to join programs and shed some light on the observed differences in social development for students with varying motivational orientations. Also, replication of these findings with different kinds of after school programs (e.g., rural or smaller programs) that have different programmatic foci (e.g., more academically focused) with various student populations would be extremely beneficial. It would also be particularly advantageous to tease apart program participation from reason to join so that differences in social development outcomes could be examined as an interaction between those two variables. Finally, given the highly correlated nature of socioemotional outcomes, it is important to replicate these results across a broader range of youth development outcomes than just socioemotional.

Limitations

There were a few notable limitations in this study. In relation to methodology, socioemotional outcomes were not compared with adolescents who did not attend an after school program or who participated in other types of activities after school. However, the primary objective of the study was to examine students’ motivation for joining as it related to differences in social outcomes for adolescents who were regularly attending an after school program. This study also did not examine how students’ reason to join related to the type of after school activity they participated in. It would be advantageous to know whether the pattern of associations between various orientations for joining and youth development look different for students who tend to self-select into academic versus extracurricular after school activities. This would provide a ripe area for future study. Moreover, the use of self-report data as a way to examine students’ perspectives on joining and report across socioemotional domains relies heavily on the accuracy of students’ reporting of their feelings and experiences. It is possible that using survey methodology resulted in a response bias such that self-joined students were more likely to report positive outcomes and greater benefit from the program compared with other-joined students. In addition, our use of data taken from an evaluation of an after school program serving public school students in southern California limits the generalizability of our findings. The study’s small sample, (especially for the other-self subgroup) as well as the socioeconomic and ethnic profile of the sample, restricts the generalizability of our findings.

Understanding what factors play a role in adolescents’ motivational changes throughout their afterschool experience is less clear and needs further examination. Our results also do not provide a complete picture of the underlying processes that explain why students report being internally or externally motivated to join an after school program or why some students report switching their reason to join over time. It is plausible that students could not accurately recall their initial reason for joining. Thus, differences in motivational orientation from pretest to posttest may not reflect actual differences in motivation, but rather may be related to adolescents’ poor memories for the initial reason they joined the program. It is also possible that reason to join was not sensitive enough to subtleties in motivational change or not a good actual measure of a multifaceted construct of motivation. The program may also not have supported the psychological needs of SDT to the extent required for socioemotional to increase over time. Given these issues, the results related to switching reason to join should be interpreted with caution.

It is also important to note that these findings were derived from examining student-reported reason for joining and not meant to be a substitute for students’ actual level of external versus autonomous motivation (Deci & Ryan, 1985) or orientation toward performance versus learning goals (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). In addition, we restricted participants by having them identify only one reason to join although previous research has shown that youth often engage in activities for multiple reasons (Beiswenger & Grolnick, 2010) and a continuum of intrinsic to extrinsic motivation exists (Deci & Ryan, 1985). In future studies, the measurement of reason for joining might be improved by measuring students’ reason for staying in the program at posttest as well as assessing students’ autonomous motivation based on the four dimensions of self-determined styles of self-regulation (i.e., intrinsic, identified, introjected, and external). Adding a survey question that asks students why they maintain their program participation (e.g., “Why do you continue to come to this after school program?”) and comparing the answer to their initial reported reason for joining could provide an alternative way to measure change in motivation. Subsequent analysis could determine whether this alternative measure of change in motivation is related to differences in socioemotional outcome for students as would be expected based on Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985).

It would also be beneficial to incorporate a more comprehensive assessment of motivation that measures students’ perception of their behavior to join or stay in the program as more autonomously driven (stemming from interests and values) versus driven more by external factors or pressures. Modifying an existing motivational assessment, such as the Activity Self-Regulation Questionnaire (A-SRQ), a 16-item questionnaire developed by Beiswenger and Grolnick (2010) that measures autonomous motivation for after school activities along the dimensions of intrinsic, identified, introjected, and external, might provide a deeper understanding of the origins and level of student motivation. However, given the data collection constraints common to program evaluations coupled with the multifaceted nature of measuring motivation, our aim in this study was to create a parsimonious yet meaningful survey item that applied researchers, evaluators, and practitioners could use to understand how motivational factors related to socioemotional development in an applied youth development context.

Recommendations for After School Practitioners and Evaluators

Reason to join was used in this study as a parsimonious proxy to approximate the complex constructs of intrinsic and extrinsic motivational; a construct, partially validated by this study, that after school evaluators and practitioners could easily implement, analyze, interpret, and use to (a) recruit and advertize programs to emphasize students’ internal reason to join; (b) identify those at-risk for poorer socioemotional outcomes, strategically differentiating services for students who identify as externally motivated and monitoring their progress in the program; and (c) help after school researchers understand for whom after school programs are most or least effective.

First, programs could advertise to adolescents in a way that promotes an intrinsic motivation to join. For example, programs could hold “peer panels” with current students to hear about the program experiences available and the types of skills they could develop, thus building the interest and curiosity of potential participants. Similarly, programs could utilize current participants as “student ambassadors” who could talk individually with peers about reasons to join, a technique currently used in the after school program in this study. Programs could also offer students the opportunity to visit the program to see firsthand the types of activities available to them, the positive interactions between staff and peers, thus, helping students decide for themselves whether they want to join.

Second, the programs could identify those at risk for poorer socioemotional outcomes, especially students who were consistently extrinsically motivated or switched their motivation from intrinsic to extrinsic, and then strategically differentiate services for these groups. For example, the program could implement a screening system into their intake process to identify why students are joining and then follow-up with students to assess changes in their motivation to join or stay in the program. Program staff could encourage dialogue with other-joined students and their families by holding focus groups to find out what specific types of after school activities would encourage otherwise other-joined youth to want to participate. Furthermore, programs could ensure that high-interest activities are specifically designed to engage other-joined students so that they build a sense of enjoyment, competency, social connection, and future goals, all of which are associated with positive youth outcomes (Hansen & Larson, 2007; Mahoney et al., 2006). Finally, programs and evaluators need to monitor the progress of all students—Are students connecting to staff, forming a personal connection, enjoying activities, and want to stay even if not required by their parents, teachers, or principals?

Finally, students’ reason for joining an after school program should be incorporated into evaluations because it is a simple indicator that may help explain differences in trajectories of program effectiveness and account for self-selection biases that often go unaccounted in the literature. Through data disaggregation, evaluators can identify at-risk students and begin to link certain individual characteristics to differential program effects, understanding better under what conditions and for whom after school programs are most or least effective (Riggs & Greenberg, 2004). In addition, students who join because they want to are, in essence, self-selecting into a program (Gottfredson, Cross, Wilson, Rorie, & Connell, 2010) and may show greater program benefits than students who join for other reasons because of unobserved differences in home environments, parenting, or individual attributes. For this reason, positive effects reported in after school programs have been considered specious (Fashola, 1998), especially if correlational or quasi-experimental designs failed to control for students’ self-selection biases. This may also explain why some reviews of after school program evaluations offer an inconclusive picture of positive program impact (Fashola, 1998; Rigg & Greenberg, 2004; Scott-Little et al., 2002), while others indicate clear support for after school programming (Grossman et al., 2002). To elucidate the net effects of after school programs within quasi-experimental designs, controlling for students’ reason to join may prove quite valuable.

Conclusions

Overall, the findings of this study indicated a pattern of results that are generally consistent with the SDT, particularly the notion that intrinsically motivational tendencies are linked to more positive development. Furthermore, adolescents whose reason to join switched toward an external orientation had diminished socioemotional outcomes over time compared to other students. As such, reason for joining may be an important precursor that not only predicts youth development outcomes but also potentially predicts students’ involvement in other activities after they have enrolled in the program. As such, reason to join should be considered a salient variable that should be measured in after school evaluations and practitioners could use it as an explanatory variable to provide programming that is targeted and sensitive to the needs of at-risk, other-joined students, in particular. Finally, this study shows the value of using a person-oriented approach to measuring motivation to join an afterschool program and suggests that using students’ reason to join can be a practical proxy for motivational orientation as well as a useful way to understand differences in socioemotional outcomes within an afterschool setting.

Footnotes

Authors’ Note

Parts of this study were previously presented at the 2009 Annual Conference of the American Evaluation Association.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Bios

Tiffany Berry is a research associate professor in the School of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences at Claremont Graduate University and a practicing educational evaluator of after school programs and K-12 educational programs.

Katherine B. LaVelle is a recent alumna of Claremont Graduate University and is now an applied developmental researcher and program evaluator at Five Acres—The Boys’ and Girls’ Aid Society of Los Angeles.

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