DePTh Lab

As youth development programs established in the United States expand globally, researchers must evaluate their impacts in diverse contexts. The work described in this article established a baseline for assessing the impact of a 4-S youth program at professional technical high schools in Costa Rica. The 4-S program is equivalent to 4-H in English-speaking countries. Results indicate that members of the 4-S program exhibited significantly higher levels of positive youth development than youths in the comparison group (p < 0.001). We consider how these findings speak to the importance of promoting programs such as 4-S, and we conclude by discussing the implications of this work for practitioners.