Positive youth development (PYD-SF) : validation for portuguese adolescents

©Copyright 2019 - SPPS | Creative Commons License. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International LicenseThe Positive Youth Development (PYD) theory believes that all young people have the potential for healthy and successful development. The aim of this study is to validate the PYD scale for portuguese adolescents. The sample included 384 adolescents (53.4% boys), attending between the 5th and 12th year of schooling levels. The confirmatory factorial analysis allowed to maintain the original structure proposed in the PYD-SF (34 items) with 5 C'S (Competence, Confidence, Connection, Character and Caring), the subscales conserved index of internal consistency ranging from a= .73 and a = .87. Differences between genders and age groups were also analysed through ANOVA. Regarding gender differences, it was observed that boys have a higher mean for the Competence, Confidence and Connection subscales. For age, the younger adolescents (10-12 years old), have higher averages for all subscales, except the subscale character. A new instrument for evaluating Positive Youth Development, valid for the Portuguese population, sensitive to gender and age differences, is proposed for use with adolescents, highlighting the importance of gender differences and age for the adequacy of public education policies to promote positive development in adolescents.