Making Every Day Count - Teens

Making Every Day Count: Boys & Girls Clubs’ Role in Promoting Positive Outcomes for Teens 58Appendix E:Outcomes AnalysesIn addressing the question, “What role do the Boys & GirlsClubs play in influencing change in teens’ school outcomes?”we used quantitative data from the baseline andfinal surveys and Club attendance records to analyze theextent to which various levels of attendance at Clubs arerelated to change in 31 outcomes, spread across each of thethree broad Club-designated outcome areas: good characterand citizenship, academic success and healthy lifestyles.For each outcome of interest, we looked at whether theamount of attendance at the Boys & Girls Club was relatedto change in the outcome from the baseline survey (Winter2006) to the final survey (Spring 2008). It is important tonote, however, that, absent a control group, the findingsare suggestive of the benefits of Club participation, but notconclusive. This is because the design of the study does notallow us to account for motivational factors that may haveaffected the outcomes and also the likelihood of participatingmore over time. For example, a positive relationshipbetween participation and improved performance may notnecessarily mean that high rates of participation lead to biggerimprovements in youth; instead, these improvementsmay have resulted from the same youth characteristics thatled the youth to participate more. In this example, theremay be an unmeasured variable, such as positive goal orientation,that would lead a youth to do better over time andalso lead a youth to be more likely to participate.The analyses conducted were Ordinary Least SquaresRegression (OLS) where outcomes were continuous,Logistic Regression where outcomes were dichotomousand Poisson Regression where outcomes were counts withclustering at zero. In each case, the outcomes are modeledas a function of the youth’s demographics (grade, ethnicityand gender), free-lunch status, and stressors in life, includingtheir behavior and school risk status at baseline. Fromthe baseline survey, the youth’s participation in leadershipopportunities, their feelings and attitudes about the conceptof fairness, number of friends who go to the Club and theirparticipation in a variety of types of activities in the fourweeks prior to the survey are included as control variables,as these variables were significant predictors of participation.The youth’s Winter 2006 rating of each outcome of interest(i.e., their baseline rating) was also included in the regressionso that we could explore the relationship of attendanceto change on that outcome. To counter as much bias towardparticipation as we could, we examined which factors thatwere measured at baseline were significantly related to participationand took account of those factors in the outcomesanalyses that we conducted.A dummy variable for each Club was also included in theanalyses as a control variable. Controls are variables that areheld constant in the regression model to “control” for theirinfluence on the model. A dummy variable is a variable withtwo categories. A value of 1 is assigned when a characteristicis present, and a value of 0 is assigned when the characteristicis not present. With respect to Club dummies, youth whoattend the Broward County Club would have a value of 1 onthe Broward County dummy, while youth who attend anyother Club would have a value of 0 on the Broward Countydummy.We first examined the linear relationship between numberof days attended and change in each outcome. By linearrelationship, we mean that each additional day attendedresults in a change in the outcome. We also tested for athreshold effect, using two days per month or more, one dayper week or more, two days per week or more, and threedays per week or more as “threshold” points to compareto lower levels of attendance. Because the time period ofinterest is 30 months, this translates as follows: Two days permonth is estimated at 52 days; once per week is estimatedat 122 days; twice per week is 244 days; and three timesper week is 366 days. When a threshold effect was found,it means that only youth that met or exceeded that level ofattendance showed significant change compared to theirlower-attending counterparts.Significant relationships between the attendance variableand the outcome of interest are noted as follows: +p