engleski

Testing the 5C model of positive youth development in Croatia

Approach that is trying to grasp how youth can develop strengths and become active society members and has a goal to understand how complex processes of individual and environmental factors influence adolescent mental health outcomes is known as Positive Youth Development (PYD). PYD has been conceptualized in several theoretical frameworks to index the strengths of adolescents. The five C's model operationalized C's that provide common terminology for indices describing thriving youth - competence, confidence, character, connection and caring. Several international studies have shown that 5C's are predictors of positive trajectories and person- context. This paper is a part of study «Testing the 5C framework of positive youth development: traditional and digital mobile measurement - P.R.O.T.E.C.T.» funded by Croatian Science Foundation, UIP – 2020 – 02 – 2852. The aim is to present the research of positive youth development in Croatian context with, with special accent on 5C questionnaire validation. Short 5C measure was administered to 310 college students from three Croatian cities within the Google forms format. Participants were more likely to be female than male (65%) and more than half of them were living in urban areas (59%). CFA and ESEM analyses in M plus were employed to test the model's factor structure. We have found that higher order models have acceptable fit. To invest in positive mental health and promote healthy development, it is needed to assess both characteristics of individual and environment with psychometrically sound measures. Researchers and practitioners can collaborate to provide science- based approach to youth mental health and programming in various context.

positive youth development, 5C, youth, validation

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