Psychological Needs Fulfillment and Engagement in Afterschool: “I Pay Attention Because I am Really Enjoying This.”

Autonomy

Autonomy has been defined as an individual’s sense of control over their choices and surroundings (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Experiencing the program as encouraging personal choice is likely to contribute to youths’ continued involvement (Deci, Vallerand, Pelletier, & Ryan, 1991). With a stronger sense of autonomy, youth are more likely to perceive their successes as resulting from their own actions.

Competence

Defined as the internal recognition of one’s ability to complete a task successfully, competence reflects a need for self-based accomplishments (Elliot, Murayama, & Pekrun, 2011). Programs can support the need for competence through emphasizing support that is direct, immediate, and ongoing; these three types of support help youth maintain attention and focus on tasks (Elliot et al., 2011).

Relatedness

Relatedness, or the desire to belong and make personal connections with individuals in the social environment, has been described as a fundamental human need (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Young people desire positive connections in settings where they feel comfortable sharing personal opinions and experiences (Guay, Marsh, Senécal, & Dowson, 2008). A sense of comfort may promote meaningful bonds with peers and program coordinators, which, in turn, can promote positive social behavior and confidence in relationship building.

Participants and Procedures

Cool Girls, Inc. is an ASP provided to female students who attend inner city, Title 1 public schools. Cool Girls, Inc. strives to support academic and life skills development for girls in Grades 2 through 12 through the implementation of programs such as Cool Tech, Cool Fitness, and Cool Connections. Specifically, Cool Girls, Inc. focuses on increasing participant’s access to resources, such as positive adult figures and opportunities for academic assistance. For example, participants in the Cool Tech program are introduced to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills. Furthermore, participants are given the opportunity to partake in the Cool Sisters program that matches students with positive adult figures who may act as positive influences. The current study was conducted as part of a qualitative evaluation designed to help the organization develop strategies for retaining adolescents in their programs over time.

Coordinators at each Cool Girls site were asked to nominate five girls who represented the typical program member. The typical program member was defined as a member who attends the program regularly and actively participates in program activities. Nominated youth were invited to participate in the study, and participation was limited to girls whose parents provided informed consent and who themselves assented participation. Participants were aware that the interviews would be recorded, and were reminded that they could refuse to answer any questions and stop participating at any time.

Participants (N = 18) were predominantly African American/Black (88.9%), while some were Latina/Hispanic (5.6%) and Caucasian/White (5.6%). The youth ranged in age from 9 to 16 years old (M = 12.11, SD = 2.19) and all were female. Seven participants were enrolled in the second to fifth grade (38.9%), six were enrolled in the sixth to eighth grade (33.3%), and five were involved in the ASPs’ high school leadership program (27.8%).

Researchers conducted individual interviews with each participant. In order to provide a comfortable environment for girls to share their experiences, and to encourage cultural understanding between participant and interviewer, the interviewers were all female and ethnically diverse, including two Caucasian, two African American, and two Latina women (Bassett, Beagan, Ristovski-Slijepcevic, & Chapman, 2008). Additionally, one Latina interviewer was able to conduct the interviews in Spanish for one participant who used English as a second language.

One-on-One Interviews

Each interview began with a brief “ice-breaker” that asked the participant to think of words describing her experience in Cool Girls. The “ice-breaker” helped to open the conversation about participants’ experiences and served as a reference point throughout the interview. On average, interviews took 30 to 45 minutes to complete and were conducted using a semi-structured interview guide addressing engagement and perceptions of when and how the program fulfilled psychological needs. Follow-up questions were used to help obtain clarification about emergent themes (Brod, Tesler, & Christensen, 2009). At the completion of the interview, participants were asked to complete a brief one-page demographic information form.

For the current analysis, we focused on interview questions that elicited information about engagement/motivation, autonomy, competence, and relatedness. For example, relevant questions included, “What is your favorite thing about Cool Girls?,” “Why is this your favorite?,” or “What do you enjoy about the activities?” Example questions to elicit perceptions of autonomy, competence, or relatedness, include the following: “When you’re at Cool Girls, do you get to make decisions about the things you do?,” “When you’re at Cool Girls, do you think you’re good at the activities you do?,” “When you are at Cool Girls do you feel close to the Cool Girls staff and volunteers?,” and “Have you made new friends your age since joining Cool Girls?” In addition, we also coded relevant passages from questions that were not initially intended to elicit discussion of these topics.

Thematic Analysis

Thematic analysis is a six-step method that allows the researcher to identify, analyze, and detail themes in narrative data (Braun & Clarke, 2006). In comparison with other qualitative methods, such as grounded theory, thematic analysis can be guided by established theory in an effort to enrich further understanding of the theory (Crowe, Inder, & Porter, 2015).

In the first step, four researchers completed a thorough review of the transcribed interviews in order to become familiar with the data (Creswell, 2007). In Step 2, the initial development of emergent themes, each researcher conducted a summary content analysis to reduce the data inductively into themes (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Coding meetings were held to compare each researcher’s theme list, and a working copy of the codebook was developed, which facilitated consistent coding across all researchers. Once a working copy of the codebook was developed, Step 3 consisted of each interview being coded by two of the four researchers to ensure reliability. During this step, some themes were revised as new themes emerged or existing themes no longer seemed applicable. Cohen’s Kappa was calculated to measure inter-rater reliability and any theme that did not meet a threshold of κ = .70 or higher was removed from the code book and excluded from subsequent analysis. To further ensure trustworthiness, we employed two forms of triangulation: data triangulation (multiple interviews from different sites) and analyst triangulation (multiple researchers analyzing the data) (Patton, 2015).

The fourth step began the process of identifying patterns across the themes. For this study, the team focused only on themes related to engagement/motivation, autonomy, competence, and relatedness. All patterns were discussed in an effort to explore how the themes may support the theoretical linkages between psychological needs fulfillment and program engagement. For Step 5, the research team further refined each theme in order to clarify how it was important to the analysis. This step produced a final codebook, complete with a comprehensive analysis of how each theme contributed to the data. This final codebook was then used in Step 6 to document and integrate the findings.

How Did Youth Describe Engagement?

Participants spoke of experiencing a sense of excitement when taking part in specific activities. Whereas engagement in activities has been defined as occurring when young people experience activities as enjoyable and capturing their interest and concentration (Larson, 2000), the linkages between these three components of engagement appeared to differ for older and younger youth. Figure 1 uses a Venn diagram to illustrate areas of age-related similarities and differences in youths’ narratives about engagement. Elementary school– and middle school–aged youth included fun, program activities, and homework help in their discussion of engagement. Only elementary school–aged girls discussed peer communication in their discussion of engagement. Middle and high school girls both pointed to relaxation as facilitating their engagement. High school–aged youth felt engaged and excited by activities that promoted self-improvement, communication with peers, and educational advancement. This excitement seemed to encourage a heightened level of focus, enjoyment, independence, and/or feeling of competence while partaking in activities. This process was expressed through the subthemes of focus/concentration and enjoyment/fun. Furthermore, the participants discussed how their sense of engagement contributed to their continued enrollment in the program over time.

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Figure 1.

Engagement by age group.

Does Perceived Needs Fulfillment Promote Program Engagement?

While discussing their continued enrollment and engagement at Cool Girls, the participants (16 of 18) often referenced ways in which they felt that Cool Girls fulfilled psychological needs that were important to them (Figure 2). Figure 2 uses a Venn diagram to illustrate areas of age-related similarities and differences among participant’s narratives; arrows extending from elementary school– to high school–aged participants illustrate developmental progression (e.g., ways younger vs. older participants differed in their discussion of similar themes).

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Figure 2.

Autonomy, competence, and relatedness by age group.

These experiences correspond with critical aspects of SDT. For example, youth derived a sense of autonomy when contributing to the structure of the curriculum and they described this experience as supporting a desire to continue participating in the program.

Barriers to Program Engagement

Although all participants spoke positively about many aspects of the program, some (four of 18) shared negative experiences that they felt were barriers to remaining engaged in the program. Whereas experiencing support for autonomy, competence, and relatedness all appeared to be important for building and sustaining program engagement, it appeared that the strongest barriers were related to disruptions in peer relatedness. For example, when asked what made her continue to attend the Cool Girls program, one middle school participant stated, “If I keep coming, I can have a lot more friends than I do. And, I thought I would have a lot more fun than I had last year.” This link between peer connectedness and engagement appears to be one-directional, in that participants discussed ways in which negative interactions with program peers contributed to their feelings of not belonging in the program and no longer wanting to attend.

Negative interpersonal relationships with fellow group members had a direct effect on levels of focus, concentration, and enjoyment. Younger participant’s reactions to negative interpersonal relationships seemed to influence their ability to focus on program activities, whereas high school participant’s reactions to negative interpersonal relationships seemed to contribute to feeling stress during participation. For example, an elementary school–aged participant spoke of a time when she struggled to concentrate on program activities because of a disagreement she was having with a fellow group member: “We become friends again later, but it is hard when we have conflict in our group activities.” In contrast, high school participants referenced their internal state as contributing to their lack of enjoyment. For example, a high school–aged participant shared a time that she did not feel like she could relax and have fun while at the program because of an altercation with a group member: “ . . . some of the girls can be straight up mean, because they think they are better than us.”

There was an interplay between peer connectedness, autonomy, and competence such that fulfillment of one need influenced fulfillment of the others to promote program engagement. Accordingly, failure to fulfill one of these needs seemed to prevent fulfillment of other needs, as demonstrated in the following quote from a middle school participant who spoke of her lack of confidence in sharing within the program when conflict occurred: “I like being around people, but I don’t like to see people sad or mad, so when that [disagreements] happens I don’t talk.”

Co-Occurrence of Themes

Participant’s interview responses often referenced overlapping themes (Figure 3). Figure 3 uses a Venn diagram to illustrate areas in which the participant’s narrative about SDT components co-occurred with their narrative about program engagement. For example, while discussing their levels of engagement within the program, participants may also draw parallels to their sense of competence, relatedness, and/or autonomy when partaking in an activity. These instances of co-occurrence are demonstrated in quotes such as “I pay attention because I’m really enjoying this . . . ” highlighting this elementary school–aged participant’s sense of enjoyment while also feeling competent in their activity. In addition, “ . . . we have fun and we get to connect with each other . . . ” demonstrating a middle school–aged participant’s co-occurrence of engagement and development of relatedness with peers within the program. Finally, one high school participant expressed the co-occurrence of both engagement and autonomy by stating, “ . . . I’ll be engaged in it [the program], and I’ll be very excited to share my opinion.”

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Figure 3.

Co-occurrence of engagement with relatedness, competence, and autonomy.

Importance of Program Engagement

Participants described greater engagement in program activities when they had some personal choice in selecting activities. Increased engagement was also closely related to participants expressing a desire to remain enrolled in the program. The findings provided further empirical support for previous research by Pearce and Larson (2006) and Mahoney, Parente, and Lord (2007), which revealed the importance of intrinsic motivation for program engagement. Specifically, when asked about their motivation to return each year, participants expressed excitement or enjoyment from sharing their opinions and that this encouraged them to want to continue participating. Continued enrollment in after-school programming has been shown to increase the likelihood of positive developmental outcomes (Dawes & Larson, 2011).

Program engagement has been shown to have a bidirectional relationship with program quality (Mahoney et al., 2007), such that program quality sets the stage for highly engaging activities, and highly engaged members are more likely to invest in the quality and development of the program. In the current study, participant’s comments suggested that they developed a sense of ownership and pride in part by taking ownership of and contributing to program activities. Middle school– and high school–aged participants, in particular, related their involvement to a perceived sense of autonomy and their desire to contribute to the program.

Engagement and Psychological Needs Fulfillment

Research has suggested that youth who are continuously attending and are engaged in an ASP are more likely to exhibit positive behaviors and attitudes both in the ASP and in other settings (Cosden, Morrison, Albanese, & Macias, 2001; Jones, 2011). For example, positive social behavior in an ASP might extend to a greater sense of connection to school and improved school attendance. Interestingly, program engagement was linked to psychological needs in distinct ways (see Figure 4). Autonomy and competence, for instance, appear to have a mutually reinforcing link to engagement. For the purposes of this study, autonomy was defined as the ability to make decisions for themselves and express themselves. Competence was defined as the internal recognition of one’s ability to complete a task successfully.

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Figure 4.

Relationship between psychological needs fulfillment and program engagement.

Participants who experienced high levels of autonomy and/or competence discussed feeling highly engaged in the program, and this sense of engagement, in turn, seemed to reinforce a sense of autonomy and/or competence. One way in which sense of autonomy can affect personal and academic development is by decreasing stress during transitional periods such as school or grade changes (Guay et al., 2008). Research has shown that youth often experience high levels of stress when transitioning from elementary to middle school, and then again from middle to high school (Hartup & Stevens, 1999). A sense of autonomy may help mitigate this stress by providing youth with the tools necessary to express their feelings and opinions confidently when interacting with peers and adults.

Gains in a sense of competence (especially, academic competence) also contributed to program engagement. Youth who ordinarily struggled to complete homework assignments expressed relief and enjoyment from having the opportunity to complete difficult tasks with assistance from program leaders. Integrating homework help into program curriculum provided participants with time to complete homework before returning home. Research has shown that the importance of homework completion increases for students as they progress through their education (Cosden et al., 2001). However, students growing up in low-income neighborhoods have been shown to struggle with homework completion. This could be because of their parent’s lack of time or resources to assist the student with their homework. When ASPs provide an environment in which students feel comfortable seeking academic help, students may experience less stress and be able to direct more energy toward engaging with program activities.

Whereas support for competence and autonomy played important roles in building and sustaining youths’ engagement in Cool Girls, the interpersonal relationships with adults and peers in the program appear to be the critical building blocks for engagement. The quality of relationships with program peers directly affected participant’s feelings about the program. This was true for both positive and negative peer relationships. Positive interpersonal relationships were associated with an ease of gaining and sustaining engagement. Feeling welcomed and relaxed were two descriptors participants used when detailing how their positive relationships made them feel while at the program. In contrast, participants described negative interpersonal relationships as a deterrent to program engagement. Youth described negative relationships as leading to feelings of high stress and discomfort, which in turn, led them to limit their involvement. Elementary school– and middle school–aged participants tended to include all members of the group when discussing how peer relationships played a role in engagement. In contrast, high school–aged students focused more on specific peers with whom they shared intimate friendships through the program. This age difference is consistent with developmental theories suggesting that in the transition from childhood to adolescence, young people tend to move from larger peer groups toward closer and more intimate relationships (Goodwin, Mrug, Borch, & Cillessen, 2012; Hartup & Stevens, 1999; Hirsch, 2005).

Implications: Integrating Age-Related Variations into Program Planning

Meschke et al. (2012) stressed the importance of integrating age and development in youth programming, since it affects so many aspects of the youth’s life. Furthermore, individuals other than their adult guardians play an increased role as youth progress through adolescence (Lehmann et al., 2013). Indeed, the findings from this study suggest important age-related differences in engagement and needs fulfillment that have implications for program planning. Our findings point to a developmental progression toward a greater sense of agency from the elementary to high school ages. Whereas the youngest girls expressed appreciation for ways in which the program supports their skill development and provides opportunities for taking part in decision making, the older girls viewed the program as a resource for pursuing personal goals. These findings align with Li and Julian’s (2012) discussion of “developmental relationships, characterized by attachment, reciprocity, progressive complexity, and balance of power” as key ingredients of effective youth interventions.

The shift from an emphasis on the whole group by elementary school youth to more intimate peer relationships by high school youth has important implications for developmentally appropriate programming. Whereas younger participants may benefit from activities that promote group cohesiveness, high school–aged participants may benefit more from activities centered on small group peer communication and conflict management. The central importance of peer relatedness to program engagement suggests that program activities that assist in peer development and encourage positive interpersonal relationships among members may function to support both autonomy and competence and increase program engagement. It should be noted that high school participants tended to have participated in the Cool Girls program for a longer period of time than younger girls, which might also explain their greater familiarity, shared experiences, and intimacy with other participants.

The findings also point to developmental changes in the how autonomy and competence are manifested and their link to program engagement. For example, elementary youth appeared to feel most competent when taking part in group activities that included all members and focused on academic material. Middle school youth seemed to feel most competent when taking part in activities that focused on personal development. Finally, high school–aged youth tended to take more control of their environment, viewing Cool Girls as facilitating, rather than providing them with, a sense of control. Specifically, high school youth described activities focused on leadership skills and future goal building as promoting competence.

Research has shown that as youth age they tend to decrease their involvement in after-school programming (Deutsch & Jones, 2008; Roffman, Pagano, & Hirsch, 2001). One reason for such decreases in program involvement may be related to programming that fails to adapt to the participant’s changing needs. Coinciding with the relation between program engagement’s and psychological needs fulfillment, it is possible that programs may promote increased retention among older adolescents through intentional efforts to structure curricula around the specific age-related needs of those youth (Jones & Deutsch, 2013).

Building on research showing that prolonged engagement promotes positive developmental outcomes for program members (Dawes & Larson, 2011), the findings of this study may inform strategies that encourage program engagement across the elementary and high school years. For example, future programming that covers a range of age groups should incorporate age appropriate practices such as group activities for the elementary school– to middle school–aged participants. Programming for high school–aged participants might emphasize greater individual choice and offer leadership opportunities that promote autonomy. Furthermore, the findings of theme co-occurrence should encourage future program development to focus on activities and policies that promote both engagement and components of self-determination theory.

Limitations and Future Directions

The current study focuses solely on female youth, as the Cool Girls program is constructed for female adolescents. However, the topic of program engagement and retention is important for both female and male students. The processes associated with peer relatedness, for example, have been shown to differ for males as compared with females (Haynie, Doogan, & Soller, 2014). Girls are likely to be positively influenced by their female peers and have larger peer groups. Boys, in contrast, may be more strongly influenced by negative behaviors in their male peers and subsequently limit the size of their peer groups. Future studies should incorporate both female and male participants in an effort to explore possible gender differences related to program involvement.

This study used self-report qualitative data to elicit participant’s personal experiences related to program engagement and fulfillment of psychological needs. Although this method offers rich narrative data, qualitative studies are limited by selective sampling. For example, program participants with low levels of engagement were likely excluded from the current study (particularly in the older age groups) due to low program retention and possible program drop out by less engaged youth. Future study of the experiences of less engaged youth could provide a more well-rounded understanding of processes of engagement and disengagement.

Future studies may include mixed methods, including observational measures and quantitative surveys to triangulate the interview data. The processes of psychological needs fulfillment have generally been thought to be strictly internal; however, observable behaviors may also be relevant. For example, positive and negative types of interactions among program members may be observed as a way of measuring relatedness. The ways in which participants express their opinions and feelings with peers and adults in the program may be observed as a way of assessing autonomy. Behaviors to look for may include instances of sharing personal opinions about program activities. Survey data could also be gathered over multiple observations to explore changes in how youth experience their needs being met through program activities.