Evaluating Girls on the Run in Promoting Positive Youth Development: Group Comparisons on Life Skills Transfer and Social Processes
Introduction
The study evaluates the impact of Girls on the Run (GOTR) on positive youth development.
GOTR uses running to teach life skills and promote healthy behaviors.
The study compares GOTR participants to youth in other organized activities (Sport and PE) on life skills transfer and social processes.
Qualitative methods complemented quantitative data through interviews with GOTR stakeholders.
Method
Participants included 215 girls in GOTR and 692 girls not in GOTR (Sport = 485; PE = 207).
Self-report measures assessed life skills transfer, peer and coach relatedness, and coach autonomy support.
Focus groups included GOTR girls, coaches, caregivers, and school personnel.
Results
GOTR girls compared favorably to Sport and PE girls on all life skills: managing emotions, resolving conflicts, helping others, and making intentional decisions.
GOTR girls compared favorably to PE girls on all 3 social processes.
GOTR and Sport girls did not differ on coach relatedness and autonomy support.
Sport girls rated teammate relatedness higher.
GOTR girls’ scores on life skills transfer remained stable at a 3-month follow-up assessment.
Stakeholders in focus groups corroborated that GOTR girls learn skills that generalize to school and home contexts.
Conclusion
GOTR is effective in teaching skills and strategies that generalize to broader life domains.
Processes explaining group differences on life skills transfer include GOTR’s intentional curriculum and supportive coaches.
Keywords
Evaluation research, out-of-school-time, coaching behaviors, mixed methods
Life skills are taught and not caught.
PYD Framework
Positive youth development (PYD) framework emphasizes skill-building opportunities.
Framework is grounded in ecological systems theories.
Contextual features of effective youth development programs include structure, supportive relationships, skill-building, inclusion, safety, and autonomy support.
PA-PYD Programs
PA-PYD programs include a range of traditional and nontraditional activities.
Key Contributors to Youths’ Acquisition of Internal Assets
Context (optimally challenging activities within a mastery climate)
External assets (feelings of connectedness to coaches and teammates)
Internal assets (i.e., life skills) and desirable outcomes
Rigorous Evaluation in PA-PYD research needs:
Comparison groups
Longitudinal designs
Retention assessments
Mixed methods to determine evidence of effectiveness
National PA-PYD Programs
Purdue Athletes Life Success program and Learning in Fitness and Education Sports Camp : promotes positive outcomes for underserved youth in a university setting (e.g., 1, 40).
Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility: delivered in school (physical education) and community (sport club) settings with youth mainly from underserved and vulnerable communities (15, 24).
The First Tee: uses golf as a vehicle for teaching life skills and promoting positive psychosocial outcomes (49).
Girls on the Run (GOTR)
A national PA-PYD program employing running and other physical activities as a platform for teaching life skills, healthy behaviors, and core values to third- through fifth-grade girls (www.girlsontherun.org).
GOTR Values:
Being intentional in decision making
Embracing individual differences
Finding strength in connectedness
Expressing gratitude
Nurturing physical and emotional health
Standing up for self and others.
GOTR Toolbox: structured activities and strategies
Star Power (positive self-visualization)
Stop and take a BrThRR (stop, breathe, think, respond, and review)
Being a Stand-Byer (responding to bullying in a positive way)
“I feel . . . when you . . . because . . . I would like for you to . . .” (a strategy to stand up for oneself and constructively express feelings).
BPM: GOTR coaches are systematically trained to deliver the life skills curriculum, emphasizing three concepts captured by the acronym
Building supportive and caring relationships (between coaches and girls and among the girls)
Creating a Positive, inclusive environment (accepting everyone and their unique qualities)
Fostering a Mastery climate (emphasizing personal effort and improvement and providing girls with voice and choice).
Limitations of Previous Studies of GOTR Participation Outcomes
Studies employed pre–post-only designs with just GOTR participants (e.g., 8, 34).
The measures were not compatible with GOTR’s Five Cs PYD philosophy, curriculum, or primary goals (e.g., 4, 31).
Some measures were not appropriate for third to fifth graders, showed low reliability, or used altered response formats without validity (e.g., 9, 34).
Some studies collected baseline data after the season began and posttest data before the season ended (e.g., 23), or had coaches or teachers administer surveys (e.g., 8, 12), which is prone to socially desirable responses and ceiling effects.
Present Study
Addresses the question: “Do Girls on the Run participants differ from a comparison group at postseason on life skills learning and transfer?”
Employed a comparison group of girls who did not participate in GOTR, testing whether any differences on life skills transfer are attributable to program characteristics (e.g., intentional curriculum, trained coaches).
Assessed the social processes of relatedness (feelings of connectedness with coaches and peers) and coach autonomy support (e.g., perceptions of coaches providing choice).
Conducted a retention assessment with the GOTR girls 3 months after the season’s end, when girls were no longer exposed to life skills lessons, to determine whether life skills transfer was enduring.
Used mixed methods—valid and age-appropriate questionnaires and focus groups with youth, coaches, caregivers, and school personnel—to gather information about life skills learning and transfer.
Hypothesized that the GOTR girls would score higher than the non-GOTR girls on life skills transfer, due to the intentional curriculum, and that relatedness and coach autonomy support would be viewed more favorably by the GOTR girls due to their emphasis in coach training.
Participants:Questionnaires
A total of 215 girls participating in GOTR (M{age} = 9.38 y, SD = 0.88) and 692 girls who did not participate in GOTR (M{age} = 9.47 y, SD = 0.86) provided complete survey data at the preseason and postseason assessments.
The 3 groups differed in the number of years involved in their activity: GOTR (M = 1.62 y, SD = 0.89); Sport (M = 3.14 y, SD = 1.59); and PE (M = 3.84 y, SD = 1.51).
Participants: Focus Group Interviews
A subsample of GOTR girls (n = 17), coaches (n = 19), caregivers (n = 10), and school personnel (n = 14) volunteered to participate in focus groups.
Questionnaires: Assessed
Life Skills Transfer
Peer and Coach Relatedness
Coach Autonomy Support
Procedure
Study approval was obtained from school district administrators, school principals, and the first author’s university institutional review board.
Prior to data collection, we secured youth assent and parental consent, as well as consent from the adult focus group participants.
The presea- son survey was administered 1 to 2 weeks prior to the start of the GOTR season (February or March), and the postseason survey was administered within 1 week after the GOTR season ended (May or June).
A retention assessment was conducted with the GOTR participants 3 months after the season’s conclusion to determine whether life skills transfer remained stable once the lessons ended.
Data Analysis
Confirmatory factor analysis assessed structural validity
Cronbach alpha assessed internal consistency reliability
Multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA) compared GOTR girls with Sport and PE girls on life skills transfer and social processes.
Repeated-measures MANOVA assessed whether life skills transfer scores at postseason remained stable at the retention assessment.
Deductive and inductive content analysis identified themes from focus group responses.
Results
Confirmatory factor analysis showed a good model fit for Life Skills Transfer Survey (LSTS), peer and coach relatedness, and coach autonomy support (indices > .95, RMSEA < .05; factor loadings P < .05).
Alpha coefficients were acceptable for all scales (≥ .70), indicating acceptable internal consistency reliability.
Group Comparisons: Life Skills Transfer
MANOVA was statistically significant for GOTR v. Sport, Wilks λ = .950; F4,695 = 9.09; P < .001; η 2 = .05
MANOVA was statistically significant for GOTR v. PE, Wilks λ = .927; F4,417 = 8.25; P < .001; η 2 = .07
Follow-up ANOVAs (Ps ≤ .03) revealed that all 4 life skills favored the girls in GOTR.
Managing emotions
Resolving conflicts
Helping others
Making intentional decisions
ESs were small-to-medium.
Group Comparisons: Social Processes
MANOVA was statistically significant for GOTR v. Sport, Wilks λ = .982; F3,696 = 4.21; P = .006; η 2 = .02
MANOVA was statistically significant for GOTR v. PE, Wilks λ = .923; F3,418 = 11.69; P < .001; η 2 = .08
Follow-up ANOVAs indicated that coach relatedness (P > .05) and autonomy support (P > .05) were not different between groups, but the scores for teammate relatedness (P = .008) were higher for Sport (M = 4.26) than GOTR (M = 4.09)
Follow-up ANOVAs (Ps ≤ .001) revealed that girls in GOTR scored higher on all 3 social processes
Coach relatedness
Autonomy support relatedness
Peer relatedness
ESs were small-to-medium.
Life Skills Transfer: Postseason to Follow-Up Assessment
Repeated-measures MANOVA was not statistically significant, Wilks λ = .961; F4,199 = 2.03; P > .05
Managing emotions remained stable over time, with scores closest to “true for me” (3.649 → 3.614).
Stability also emerged for resolving conflicts (3.588 → 3.624), “I share how I feel when I disagree with a friend,” and for helping others (3.898 → 3.893), as in listening to and comforting others when they are upset.
The scores for intentional decision making (e.g., “I stop and think about what might happen before making a big decision”) slightly declined from postseason to follow-up (3.833 → 3.678), both values are still interpreted as “true for me.”
Focus Group Findings: What Kinds of Things Have You Learned (Do Girls Learn) at GOTR?
Many common higher-order themes emerged: standing up for self and others, positive emotional behaviors, self-acceptance, and positive social behaviors.
The girls and coaches named making good choices, which centered on choosing the right friends and knowing whom to trust, and an attitude of gratitude, while the caregivers included setting and accomplishing goals, particularly meeting the common 5k goal.
The school personnel elaborated on community building, with lower-order themes of community service, giving to others who need help, giving back to community, and sharing resources.
Focus Group Finding
Have You Used (Heard or Observed Whether Girls Use) Skills Learned at GOTR in Situations at School, Home, or Neighborhood, or in Other Situations?
The girls responded with many examples of using skills and strategies to manage emotions, resolve conflicts, and stand up for self and others.
Prominent strategies were “stop and take a BrThRR” (stop, breathe, think, respond, and review) for reducing negative emotions, and “I feel . . . when you . . . because . . . I would like for you to,” for resolving disagreements.
Discussion
The study evaluated the effectiveness of GOTR in teaching life skills by using comparison groups, a retention assessment to determine whether life skills scores were sustained, quantitative and qualitative methods, age-appropriate survey measures, and multiple stakeholders in focus groups.
The ability to generalize learned skills to other contexts, such as school (e.g., academic testing) and home (e.g., sibling conflict), is a distinguishing feature of PA-PYD programs compared with youth sport and PE programs, which may not include an intentional life skills curriculum (30, 44).
The favorable ratings for the girls in GOTR are especially noteworthy, given that they were in the program for half the number of years compared with the girls in Sport and PE, showing that GOTR is having a positive impact on life skills learning in much less time.
Similar scores may also reinforce findings that youth sport programs are variable in the degree to which the coaches engage in positive feedback, use an autonomy-supportive style, and create a mastery climate (e.g., 17, 43).
Conclusion
The survey and focus group data provide strong evidence that GOTR is having a positive impact on promoting PYD.
The intentional life skills curriculum, coach training to deliver lessons with fidelity, and social-contextual features underpinning PYD (e.g., appropriate structure, physical and psychological safety, inclusion of all members, positive social norms) (11), explain the favorable group differences on life skills transfer and in less participation time compared with the girls in organized sport and PE.
Introduction
The study rigorously evaluates the impact of Girls on the Run (GOTR), a structured physical activity-based youth development program, on positive youth development outcomes.
GOTR leverages running as a platform to impart essential life skills and promote healthy behaviors among young girls, fostering holistic development.
The study employs a comparative design, contrasting GOTR participants with youth engaged in other organized activities (Sport and PE) to assess differences in life skills transfer and social processes.
Qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews with GOTR stakeholders (girls, coaches, caregivers, school personnel), provide rich contextual data to complement quantitative findings.
Method
Participants comprised 215 girls actively involved in GOTR and a comparison group of 692 girls not participating in GOTR (Sport = 485; PE = 207), ensuring a robust sample size for statistical analyses.
Self-report measures, validated for use with this age group, were utilized to assess various constructs, including life skills transfer, peer and coach relatedness, and coach autonomy support.
Focus groups were conducted with key stakeholders, including GOTR girls, coaches, caregivers, and school personnel, to gather nuanced perspectives on program impact and implementation.
Results
GOTR girls demonstrated significantly higher scores on measures of life skills transfer compared to girls in Sport and PE, indicating superior acquisition of skills in managing emotions, resolving conflicts, helping others, and making intentional decisions.
GOTR girls exhibited more favorable scores on all three assessed social processes (coach relatedness, autonomy support, and peer relatedness) when compared to PE girls, highlighting the program's positive influence on social development.
No significant differences were observed between GOTR and Sport girls regarding coach relatedness and autonomy support, suggesting comparable levels of support in these domains.
Sport girls reported higher levels of teammate relatedness compared to GOTR girls, potentially reflecting the team-oriented nature of sports.
Longitudinal data revealed that GOTR girls’ scores on life skills transfer remained stable at a 3-month follow-up assessment, suggesting enduring skill retention beyond program participation.
Stakeholders participating in focus groups consistently affirmed that GOTR girls acquire skills that generalize to various contexts, including school and home environments, reinforcing the program's ecological validity.
Conclusion
GOTR is demonstrably effective in teaching skills and strategies that transfer to broader life domains, empowering girls to navigate diverse challenges and opportunities.
The intentional curriculum, characterized by structured activities and experiential learning, and the presence of supportive coaches who foster positive relationships, are key processes explaining group differences in life skills transfer.
Keywords
Evaluation research, out-of-school-time, coaching behaviors, mixed methods
Life skills are taught and not caught.
PYD Framework
Positive youth development (PYD) framework underscores the importance of providing skill-building opportunities for fostering positive outcomes among youth.
The PYD framework is firmly rooted in ecological systems theories, recognizing the interplay between individual characteristics and environmental contexts in shaping development.
Key contextual features of effective youth development programs include structure, supportive relationships, skill-building activities, inclusion, safety (both physical and emotional), and autonomy support.
PA-PYD Programs
PA-PYD programs encompass a diverse array of traditional and nontraditional activities that integrate physical activity with positive youth development principles.
Key Contributors to Youths’ Acquisition of Internal Assets
Context: Optimally challenging activities within a mastery climate foster skill development and personal growth.
External assets: Feelings of connectedness to coaches and teammates provide essential social support and promote positive relationships.
Internal assets: Life skills acquired through PA-PYD programs contribute to desirable outcomes, such as improved emotional regulation and decision-making abilities.
Rigorous Evaluation in PA-PYD research necessitates:
Comparison groups: Allowing for the isolation of program effects by comparing outcomes between participants and non-participants.
Longitudinal designs: Enabling the examination of long-term impacts and sustainability of program effects over time.
Retention assessments: Assessing the extent to which acquired skills and knowledge are retained after program completion.
Mixed methods: Combining quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques to provide a comprehensive understanding of program effectiveness.
National PA-PYD Programs
Purdue Athletes Life Success program and Learning in Fitness and Education Sports Camp: Promotes positive outcomes for underserved youth in a university setting (e.g., 1, 40), providing access to resources and mentorship opportunities.
Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility: Delivered in school (physical education) and community (sport club) settings with youth mainly from underserved and vulnerable communities (15, 24), fostering character development and social responsibility.
The First Tee: Uses golf as a vehicle for teaching life skills and promoting positive psychosocial outcomes (49), leveraging the sport's unique challenges to build resilience and perseverance.
Girls on the Run (GOTR)
A national PA-PYD program employing running and other physical activities as a platform for teaching life skills, healthy behaviors, and core values to third- through fifth-grade girls (www.girlsontherun.org).
GOTR Values:
Being intentional in decision making
Embracing individual differences
Finding strength in connectedness
Expressing gratitude
Nurturing physical and emotional health
Standing up for self and others.
GOTR Toolbox: structured activities and strategies
Star Power (positive self-visualization)
Stop and take a BrThRR (stop, breathe, think, respond, and review)
Being a Stand-Byer (responding to bullying in a positive way)
“I feel . . . when you . . . because . . . I would like for you to . . .” (a strategy to stand up for oneself and constructively express feelings).
BPM: GOTR coaches are systematically trained to deliver the life skills curriculum, emphasizing three concepts captured by the acronym
Building supportive and caring relationships (between coaches and girls and among the girls)
Creating a Positive, inclusive environment (accepting everyone and their unique qualities)
Fostering a Mastery climate (emphasizing personal effort and improvement and providing girls with voice and choice).
Limitations of Previous Studies of GOTR Participation Outcomes
Studies employed pre–post-only designs with just GOTR participants (e.g., 8, 34), lacking control groups for comparison.
The measures were not compatible with GOTR’s Five Cs PYD philosophy, curriculum, or primary goals (e.g., 4, 31), resulting in misaligned assessments.
Some measures were not appropriate for third to fifth graders, showed low reliability, or used altered response formats without validity (e.g., 9, 34), compromising data quality.
Some studies collected baseline data after the season began and posttest data before the season ended (e.g., 23), or had coaches or teachers administer surveys (e.g., 8, 12), which is prone to socially desirable responses and ceiling effects, introducing bias into the findings.
Present Study
Addresses the question: “Do Girls on the Run participants differ from a comparison group at postseason on life skills learning and transfer?”
Employed a comparison group of girls who did not participate in GOTR, testing whether any differences on life skills transfer are attributable to program characteristics (e.g., intentional curriculum, trained coaches).
Assessed the social processes of relatedness (feelings of connectedness with coaches and peers) and coach autonomy support (e.g., perceptions of coaches providing choice).
Conducted a retention assessment with the GOTR girls 3 months after the season’s end, when girls were no longer exposed to life skills lessons, to determine whether life skills transfer was enduring.
Used mixed methods—valid and age-appropriate questionnaires and focus groups with youth, coaches, caregivers, and school personnel—to gather information about life skills learning and transfer.
Hypothesized that the GOTR girls would score higher than the non-GOTR girls on life skills transfer, due to the intentional curriculum, and that relatedness and coach autonomy support would be viewed more favorably by the GOTR girls due to their emphasis in coach training.
Participants:Questionnaires
A total of 215 girls participating in GOTR (M{age} = 9.38 y, SD = 0.88) and 692 girls who did not participate in GOTR (M{age} = 9.47 y, SD = 0.86) provided complete survey data at the preseason and postseason assessments.
The 3 groups differed in the number of years involved in their activity: GOTR (M = 1.62 y, SD = 0.89); Sport (M = 3.14 y, SD = 1.59); and PE (M = 3.84 y, SD = 1.51).
Participants: Focus Group Interviews
A subsample of GOTR girls (n = 17), coaches (n = 19), caregivers (n = 10), and school personnel (n = 14) volunteered to participate in focus groups.
Questionnaires: Assessed
Life Skills Transfer
Peer and Coach Relatedness
Coach Autonomy Support
Procedure
Study approval was obtained from school district administrators, school principals, and the first author’s university institutional review board.
Prior to data collection, we secured youth assent and parental consent, as well as consent from the adult focus group participants.
The presea- son survey was administered 1 to 2 weeks prior to the start of the GOTR season (February or March), and the postseason survey was administered within 1 week after the GOTR season ended (May or June).
A retention assessment was conducted with the GOTR participants 3 months after the season’s conclusion to determine whether life skills transfer remained stable once the lessons ended.
Data Analysis
Confirmatory factor analysis assessed structural validity
Cronbach alpha assessed internal consistency reliability
Multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA) compared GOTR girls with Sport and PE girls on life skills transfer and social processes.
Repeated-measures MANOVA assessed whether life skills transfer scores at postseason remained stable at the retention assessment.
Deductive and inductive content analysis identified themes from focus group responses.
Results
Confirmatory factor analysis showed a good model fit for Life Skills Transfer Survey (LSTS), peer and coach relatedness, and coach autonomy support (indices > .95, RMSEA < .05; factor loadings P < .05).
Alpha coefficients were acceptable for all scales (≥ .70), indicating acceptable internal consistency reliability.
Group Comparisons: Life Skills Transfer
MANOVA was statistically significant for GOTR v. Sport, Wilks λ = .950; F4,695 = 9.09; P < .001; η 2 = .05
MANOVA was statistically significant for GOTR v. PE, Wilks λ = .927; F4,417 = 8.25; P < .001; η 2 = .07
Follow-up ANOVAs (Ps ≤ .03) revealed that all 4 life skills favored the girls in GOTR.
Managing emotions
Resolving conflicts
Helping others
Making intentional decisions
ESs were small-to-medium.
Group Comparisons: Social Processes
MANOVA was statistically significant for GOTR v. Sport, Wilks λ = .982; F3,696 = 4.21; P = .006; η 2 = .02
MANOVA was statistically significant for GOTR v. PE, Wilks λ = .923; F3,418 = 11.69; P < .001; η 2 = .08
Follow-up ANOVAs indicated that coach relatedness (P > .05) and autonomy support (P > .05) were not different between groups, but the scores for teammate relatedness (P = .008) were higher for Sport (M = 4.26) than GOTR (M = 4.09)
Follow-up ANOVAs (Ps ≤ .001) revealed that girls in GOTR scored higher on all 3 social processes
Coach relatedness
Autonomy support relatedness
Peer relatedness
ESs were small-to-medium.
Life Skills Transfer: Postseason to Follow-Up Assessment
Repeated-measures MANOVA was not statistically significant, Wilks λ = .961; F4,199 = 2.03; P > .05
Managing emotions remained stable over time, with scores closest to “true for me” (3.649 → 3.614).
Stability also emerged for resolving conflicts (3.588 → 3.624), “I share how I feel when I disagree with a friend,” and for helping others (3.898 → 3.893), as in listening to and comforting others when they are upset.
The scores for intentional decision making (e.g., “I stop and think about what might happen before making a big decision”) slightly declined from postseason to follow-up (3.833 → 3.678), both values are still interpreted as “true for me.”
Focus Group Findings: What Kinds of Things Have You Learned (Do Girls Learn) at GOTR?
Many common higher-order themes emerged: standing up for self and others, positive emotional behaviors, self-acceptance, and positive social behaviors.
The girls and coaches named making good choices, which centered on choosing the right friends and knowing whom to trust, and an attitude of gratitude, while the caregivers included setting and accomplishing goals, particularly meeting the common 5k goal.
The school personnel elaborated on community building, with lower-order themes of community service, giving to others who need help, giving back to community, and sharing resources.
Focus Group Finding
Have You Used (Heard or Observed Whether Girls Use) Skills Learned at GOTR in Situations at School, Home, or Neighborhood, or in Other Situations?
The girls responded with many examples of using skills and strategies to manage emotions, resolve conflicts, and stand up for self and others.
Prominent strategies were “stop and take a BrThRR” (stop, breathe, think, respond, and review) for reducing negative emotions, and “I feel . . . when you . . . because . . . I would like for you to,” for resolving disagreements.
Discussion
The study evaluated the effectiveness of GOTR in teaching life skills by using comparison groups, a retention assessment to determine whether life skills scores were sustained, quantitative and qualitative methods, age-appropriate survey measures, and multiple stakeholders in focus groups.
The ability to generalize learned skills to other contexts, such as school (e.g., academic testing) and home (e.g., sibling conflict), is a distinguishing feature of PA-PYD programs compared with youth sport and PE programs, which may not include an intentional life skills curriculum (30, 44).
The favorable ratings for the girls in GOTR are especially noteworthy, given that they were in the program for half the number of years compared with the girls in Sport and PE, showing that GOTR is having a positive impact on life skills learning in much less time.
Similar scores may also reinforce findings that youth sport programs are variable in the degree to which the coaches engage in positive feedback, use an autonomy-supportive style, and create a mastery climate (e.g., 17, 43).
Conclusion
The survey and focus group data provide strong evidence that GOTR is having a positive impact on promoting PYD.
The intentional life skills curriculum, coach training to deliver lessons with fidelity, and social-contextual features underpinning PYD (e.g., appropriate structure, physical and psychological safety, inclusion of all members, positive social norms) (11), explain the favorable group differences on life skills transfer and in less participation time compared with the girls in organized sport and PE.