More than Data Collectors: A Systematic Review of the Environmental Outcomes of Youth Inquiry Approaches in the United States.

More than Data Collectors: A Systematic Review of the Environmental Outcomes of Youth Inquiry Approaches in the United States. Am J Community Psychol. 2019 Mar;63(1-2):208-226 Authors: Kennedy H, DeChants J, Bender K, Anyon Y Abstract Over the last twenty years, research on the impact of engaging children and adolescents in the generation of new knowledge about their lives, schools, and communities, has grown tremendously. This systematic review summarizes the findings from empirical studies of youth inquiry approaches in the United States, with a focus on their environmental outcomes. Searches of four interdisciplinary databases retrieved a total of 3,724 relevant articles published between 1995 and 2015. Sixty-three distinct studies met the systematic review inclusion criteria, of which, 36 (57.1%) reported that the youth inquiry approach contributed to positive changes among adults, peers, organizations, and/or institutions. These environmental outcomes were qualitatively recorded, inductively categorized, and then organized into Bronfenbrenner's ecological framework. Youth inquiry approaches led to practitioner growth and changes in peer group norms at the micro-system level, program development or improvement and research benefits at the meso-system level, and school, city, and state level policy adoption at the exo-system level. Qualitative methods, especially case studies, were most commonly used to evaluate the impact of yout...
Source: American Journal of Community Psychology - Category: Psychiatry Tags: Am J Community Psychol Source Type: research