Page 194 - Ana Kozina and Nora Wiium, eds. ▪︎ Positive Youth Development in Contexts. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2021. Digital Library, Dissertationes (Scientific Monographs), 42.
P. 194
positive youth development in contexts
children. This indicates that contact-based interventions may be effective
for both age groups.
Interventions seem mostly to have had no effect on teenagers, per-
haps because of an unrepresentative sample, lower research quality and the
lack of optimal conditions for effective intervention execution (i.e. an in-
tervention administered by untrained teachers and students, non-stand-
ardised research conditions) (Ülger et al., 2018) or it could be attributed
to the participants’ age. Prejudice might be less malleable in adolescence
(Augoustinos & Rosewarne, 2001), making prejudice-reducing interven-
tions less effective. Yet, other findings indicate successful contact-based in-
terventions can be administered to an adolescent population (e.g. Tropp &
Ramiah, 2017).
Characteristics of intervention implementation:
administrator of the intervention
We excluded Vezzali et al. (2015a) from this analysis since who adminis-
tered the intervention is not specified. When the administrator was a teach-
er, the intervention produced negligible effects, while interventions admin-
istered by researchers as the administrator produced small-to-moderate
effects. Interventions produced moderate-to-large effects when adminis-
tered by external colleagues and negligible-to-small effects when adminis-
tered by students (see Table 1).
Teachers conducted an intervention in only one study (Vezzali et al.,
2018) that produced no effect on outcome measures, which is consistent
with several metanalyses that found no effect for teacher-administered in-
terventions (Aboud et al., 2012; Ülger et al., 2018). Such results may be at-
tributed to the lack of sufficient training for intervention execution because
it was not specified if the teachers had even received training or perhaps
standardisation was lacking since teachers sometimes do not perceive it to
be of primary importance or cannot follow the exact procedure due to time
restrictions (Stains & Vickrey, 2017). Still, not much can be speculated giv-
en that only one study of this kind was included in the review.
Similar effects were observed for interventions administered by stu-
dents, who had purportedly received training in both studies (Liebkind et
al., 2013; Vezzali et al., 2015b), although this is not explained in detail.
When researchers conducted the intervention, no specific trend was
observed since the effects varied in size. Administrators have been the au-
thors of the study (Cameron et al., 2006, 2007), assistants to the study’s
194
children. This indicates that contact-based interventions may be effective
for both age groups.
Interventions seem mostly to have had no effect on teenagers, per-
haps because of an unrepresentative sample, lower research quality and the
lack of optimal conditions for effective intervention execution (i.e. an in-
tervention administered by untrained teachers and students, non-stand-
ardised research conditions) (Ülger et al., 2018) or it could be attributed
to the participants’ age. Prejudice might be less malleable in adolescence
(Augoustinos & Rosewarne, 2001), making prejudice-reducing interven-
tions less effective. Yet, other findings indicate successful contact-based in-
terventions can be administered to an adolescent population (e.g. Tropp &
Ramiah, 2017).
Characteristics of intervention implementation:
administrator of the intervention
We excluded Vezzali et al. (2015a) from this analysis since who adminis-
tered the intervention is not specified. When the administrator was a teach-
er, the intervention produced negligible effects, while interventions admin-
istered by researchers as the administrator produced small-to-moderate
effects. Interventions produced moderate-to-large effects when adminis-
tered by external colleagues and negligible-to-small effects when adminis-
tered by students (see Table 1).
Teachers conducted an intervention in only one study (Vezzali et al.,
2018) that produced no effect on outcome measures, which is consistent
with several metanalyses that found no effect for teacher-administered in-
terventions (Aboud et al., 2012; Ülger et al., 2018). Such results may be at-
tributed to the lack of sufficient training for intervention execution because
it was not specified if the teachers had even received training or perhaps
standardisation was lacking since teachers sometimes do not perceive it to
be of primary importance or cannot follow the exact procedure due to time
restrictions (Stains & Vickrey, 2017). Still, not much can be speculated giv-
en that only one study of this kind was included in the review.
Similar effects were observed for interventions administered by stu-
dents, who had purportedly received training in both studies (Liebkind et
al., 2013; Vezzali et al., 2015b), although this is not explained in detail.
When researchers conducted the intervention, no specific trend was
observed since the effects varied in size. Administrators have been the au-
thors of the study (Cameron et al., 2006, 2007), assistants to the study’s
194
