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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Movement Science
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1404110

Relevance and quality of the Gipuzkoan extracurricular youth sports program: an evaluation from a Positive Youth Development perspective

Provisionally accepted
Ekain Zubizarreta Ekain Zubizarreta 1Jon Ortuondo Jon Ortuondo 2*Oidui Usabiaga Oidui Usabiaga 1nagore Martinez-Merino nagore Martinez-Merino 3
  • 1 Faculty of Education and Sport, University of the Basque Country, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
  • 2 Begoñako Andra Mari University School of Teachers, Derio, Spain
  • 3 Department of Musical, Plastic and Physical Expression Didactics, Faculty of Education and Sport, University of the Basque Country, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Physical activity and sport (PAS) programmes are an important part of organised extracurricular activities for children and young people. They appear as potentially inclusive environments where students could be provided with holistic development based on active and healthy lifestyles. The aim of this study was to evaluate and describe the Gipuzkoa School Sport Programme (GSSP) from the Positive Youth Development (PYD) perspective, using Tejedor's (2000) guidelines of programme evaluation. The research was carried out based on CPAR (Critical Participatory Action-Research) methodology: a 'CPAR group' was created -including researchers and policymakers-to carry out the evaluation of the GSSP in which we analysed a) the social environment or PYD climate and b) life skills (Holt et al., 2017). The evaluation and description of the GSSP confirmed that it meets most requirements for providing positive development contexts and opportunities for PYD. The choice of prioritising multisport and deliberate play and putting early specialisation aside seem key conditions to ensure PYD-promoting environments. This work could serve as a referent for decisionmakers in organisations dedicated to designing, developing, implementing, and evaluating PYDfocused extracurricular youth sport programmes.

    Keywords: Sport programs, Physical activity and sport, positive youth development, Program Evaluation, extracurricular sports program

    Received: 20 Mar 2024; Accepted: 03 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Zubizarreta, Ortuondo, Usabiaga and Martinez-Merino. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Jon Ortuondo, Begoñako Andra Mari University School of Teachers, Derio, Spain

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.