Abstract
Among growing societal concern for youth's healthy development, it has been proposed that sport programs can serve as contexts to foster healthy psychosocial development and life skills (Fraser-Thomas et al., 2005). Despite this, little research has focused on how different types of sporting programs may be facilitating positive experiences and outcomes among youth. The purpose of this study was to examine associations between program characteristics and youths' developmental experiences within these programs. Two hundred fourteen youth aged 10-18 involved in a diverse range of programs completed the Youth Experience Survey for Sport (YES-S; MacDonald et al., 2009). Results indicate sport type (i.e., team/individual), competition level (i.e., recreational/competitive), coach characteristics (i.e., age, gender) and contextual factors (i.e., number of coaches, group size) are associated with significantly different experiences in the areas of initiative, goal setting, cognitive skills, and negative experiences. Findings suggest further exploration is necessary to fully understand the processes and mechanisms that may be contributing to more positive or negative experiences in youth sport programs. Discussion will focus on how findings can begin to inform future guidelines and reform strategies in youth sport programs.Acknowledgments: SSHRC - SCRI (Sport Canada Research Initiative)