Exploring the '5Cs' of Positive Youth Development in sport.

Abstract

The emerging field of youth development has been associated with indicators of Positive Youth Development (PYD) known as the 5Cs (competence, confidence, connection, character and caring). The 5Cs model (Lerner et al, 2005) describes PYD as the culmination of the Cs, whereby higher scores on each of the Cs contributes to a resultant higher score for PYD. Researchers have suggested sport is a salient context for developing the 5Cs. However, there is no specific evidence for the existence of the 5Cs among young people who play sport. The purpose of this study was to examine the latent dimensionality of PYD in sport. Two hundred andsfty eight youth sport participants (59 males, 199 females; M age= 13.77 years, SD = 1.23; range 12-16 years) attending summer sport camps at a Canadian university completed a 30-item instrument that was adapted from Phelps et al. 's (2009) 78item measure of the 5Cs of PYD. Confirmatory factor analyses failed to provide support for the 5Cs model identified in previous research (i.e., Lerner et al. and Phelps et al.). Instead, exploratory factor analyses indicated that PYD in sport might be comprised of two factors that reflect pro-social values and confidence/competence. It is proposed that the 5Cs did not emerge in this study because (a) each C may not be uniquely identified by the current sample due to their stage of ontogeny, and (b) some of the Cs are so similar in nature (i. e., so highly correlated) that they are perceived as similar constructs. Implications of this study suggest that, in a sporting context, PYD might best be represented by pro-social values and confidence/competence rather than the 5Cs.