YA4 H! Youth Advocates for Health: Impact of a 4 H Teens as Teachers Program.
This article reports the results of an evaluation of the YA4 H! Youth Advocates for Health Teens as Teachers program. Consistent with previous research on the impact of teen teaching, the teens participating in the program gained confidence and skill with regard to teaching younger youths. The program also affected the teens' understanding that they are role models for younger youths and their desire to be role models. Additionally, the teens learned the content they taught and adopted new healthful behaviors. These results are promising and add to the growing body of evidence suggesting that teens learn and adopt practices they teach to younger youths. Engaging teens as teachers of younger youths has emerged as a popular strategy in 4 H programs, driven in large part by the "teen health ambassador" model, which grew out of the national 4 H Healthy Living Framework (National 4 H Council, 2009) In recent years, this model has gained popularity across the United States as a method for delivering 4 H programs related to healthful living (Arnold, Flesch, Lile, 2014) Despite the growing popularity of the teens as teachers approach, limited research exists to demonstrate the efficacy of using teens as teachers or the developmental impact that teaching has on the teens. This article addresses the results of an evaluation of a YA4 H! Youth Advocates for Health program that engaged teens in teaching younger youths about whole grains. Teens as Teachers The research that does exist suggests that cross age teaching having teens teach other youths who are 3 or more years younger offers many positive developmental outcomes for both the younger children and the teens Mary E. Arnold Professor and Youth Development Specialist Oregon State University Corvallis, Oregon mary.arnold@oregonst ate.edu Jeffrey M. Flesch Graduate Student, Human Development and Family Sciences Oregon State University Corvallis, Oregon fleschj@oregonstate.e du Carolyn Ashton Associate Professor and 4 H Educator Oregon State University Corvallis, Oregon carolyn.ashton@orego nstate.edu Lynette Black Associate Professor and 4 H Educator Oregon State University The Dalles, Oregon lynette.black@oregons tate.edu Barbara Brody Professor of Practice and 4 H Educator Oregon State University Ontario, Oregon barb.brody@oregonsta te.edu Maureen Hosty Professor and 4 H Educator Oregon State University Portland, Oregon maureen.hosty@orego nstate.edu Shanna Northway Professor of Practice and 4 H Educator Oregon State University John Day, Oregon shanna.northway@ore gonstate.edu (Backett Milburn Wilson, 2000; Bird Subramaniam, 2001; Guldal, Mevsim, Gunvar, Ozcakar, 2012; Smith Enfield, 2002) Successful programs not only provide fun and exciting instruction for younger children but also offer opportunities for adolescents to learn more about the subjects they are teaching (Arnold et al. 2014; Arnold Nott, 2010; Hammond Diedrich Walsh, 2006; Murdock, Lee, Paterson, 2003; Ripberger Blalock, 2013; Ripberger, Devitt, Gore, 2009) Teens typically describe several reasons for wanting to teach younger children, including wanting to expand their knowledge, gain experience, build their resumes, improve their relationships, and add variety and interest to their lives (Arnold et al. 2014; Guldal et al. 2012) According to research, the benefits to teens can be summarized in three broad categories: Skill Development. Teens gain a range of new skills, including those related to knowledge of the program content, team building, leadership, problem solving, teaching, communication, empowerment, competency, work habits, public speaking, and role modeling. High quality teens as teachers programs provide teens with various opportunities to enhance these skills, each of which helps them become better teachers and more fully developed teens. Personal Development. Teen teaching programs also provide opportunities for personal development, especially in the areas of self confidence, responsibility, authenticity, enthusiasm, ability to overcome prejudices, achievement, goal setting, fulfillment, career exploration, and a sense of making a contribution to others. New Relationships and Friendships. Forming new friendships through a teen teaching program enhances a young person's social connections, expands his or her network, and provides connections and resources that may be valuable in the teen's future. Opportunities for skill, personal, and relational development reflect core principles of positive youth development programs. YA4 H! Youth Advocates for Health In response to the growing need for additional resources to prepare teen teachers, the YA4 H! Advocates for Health Teens as Teachers training curriculum was developed (Arnold, Gifford, Deen, Edwards, 2015) The curriculum provides activity based training to teens in the areas of child development, learning styles, diversity, classroom management, and professionalism. Toward the end of the curriculum development, a pilot opportunity became available through the Oregon State University Moore Family Center Healthy Communities Outreach Project, in partnership with Bob's Red Mill, which funded regional grants to Extension programs in Oregon. Five regions (of 12) chose to use the funding to build their YA4 H! Advocates for Health Teens as Teachers programs and engage teens to teach younger children about whole grains. Participant Demographics and Methods As a result of the grant program, 68 teens were trained as teen teachers. The age of the participants ranged from 13 to 18, with a mean age of 15.69. Sixty nine percent of the participants were female, which is consistent with 4 H enrollment in Oregon. Participants were somewhat diverse, with 71.9% being White; 17.5% Asian; 7.0% Black or African American; and 3.5% American Indian or Alaskan Native. Research In Brief YA4 H! Youth Advocates for Health: Impact of a 4 H Teens as Teachers Program JOE 54(6) (c) 2016 Extension Journal Inc. 1 The teens worked with local 4 H agents to learn about teaching and to develop competence in teaching the selected curriculum on whole grains. Following the training, the teens taught the curriculum to younger youths in a variety of program settings. The teen teachers taught the whole grains curriculum to the youths over a series of several sessions. The number of sessions varied from region to region. At the end of the program, the teens were asked to complete a written survey evaluation about their experience in the program. The first part of the evaluation involved a retrospective pretest design and consisted of eight items related to various elements of the teen teaching experience. The teens rated their agreement with each item on the basis of how they had felt prior to the program (preprogram) and how they felt at the end of the program (postprogram) The response set for each item was a 4 point scale (1 strongly disagree, 2 disagree, 3 agree, 4 strongly agree) The evaluation also included items addressing skills the teens learned, the teens' feelings about being able to mentor younger youths, changes in the teens' knowledge and practices related to whole grain foods, and effects on the teens' eating habits and physical activity levels. For each item addressing changes in knowledge and practices related to whole grain foods, the response set was a 5 point scale (1 increased a lot, 2 increased a little, 3 about the same, 4 decreased a little, 5 decreased a lot) Results For analysis of the first eight items on the evaluation, the "agree" and "strongly agree" categories were combined. For each item, the frequencies (percentages) of teens who reported agreeing or strongly agreeing relative to how they had felt prior to the program and teens who reported agreeing or strongly agreeing relative to how they felt at the end of the program were calculated. Then the difference in preprogram and postprogram percentages for each item was analyzed through the use of McNemar's (1947) statistical test of proportions that is conducted on paired data before and after an event. As shown in Table 1, teens' responses indicated significant changes from before the program to after the program for all items. Table 1. Percentages of Teens Agreeing or Strongly Agreeing About Elements of the Teen Teaching Experience Item Preprogram Postprogram Difference I was a role model for younger youth 63.2 85.3 22.1* I desire to be a role model 73.5 88.2 14.7* I am comfortable teaching younger youth 53.0 86.4 33.4* I have the skills I need to teach younger youth 45.4 73.3 27.9* I am good at teaching younger youth 40.9 71.2 30.3* I experience a successful youth adult partnership 53.0 86.1 33.1* I want to contribute my skills to help others 81.8 95.4 13.6* I want to contribute my skills to help my community 80.3 93.9 13.6* Research In Brief YA4 H! Youth Advocates for Health: Impact of a 4 H Teens as Teachers Program JOE 54(6) (c) 2016 Extension Journal Inc. 2 *p .001 for all items. Most Important Skills Developed The teens also responded to an open ended question regarding the most important skill they developed. Fiftyeight participants (85% provided answers, resulting in four major themes: Of those who responded, 40% reported that learning how to interact and build quality relationships with children and adults was the most important skill they developed. The answers given by 25% of the respondents centered on having the opportunity to increase personal skills. These participants reported experiencing development in a range of skill areas, such as leadership, confidence, safety, teamwork, handling the unexpected, and lesson planning. Another group of respondents (20% reported that public speaking was the most important skill developed, stating that having the opportunity to speak in front of small groups and larger crowds was positive for their development. A final group of participants (14.5% reported that learning and practicing effective tea