Initiating & sustaining participation
Insights from the Vancouver Youth Week Survey
by Steven R. Dang (GETOUT! Ideas Factory Coordinator), July 28, 2005
followed by the complete results of the Vancouver Youth Week Survey,
conducted by Barb Hinton and the Vancouver Youth Week Organizing Committee
» Advice for getting less-active youth involved
» Advice for sustaining participation
» Results from the Vancouver Youth Week Survey on youth activity & motivations
During Vancouver’s Youth Week this year, 195 youth responded to an online survey, conducted by the Vancouver Youth Week Organizing Committee in partnership with Get Out!, about their activity levels and motivations for getting out and getting active.
The results do not necessarily reflect activity levels and motivations among all Vancouver youth. Respondents to this survey were a non-random sample of young people who came across the survey while visiting the Vancouver Youth Week and/or other related websites.
As such, there is a high probability that the results represent the activity levels and motivations of young people in Vancouver who are already engaged or who are interested in becoming engaged to the extent to which they were already visiting the Vancouver Youth Week, City of Vancouver, BC Youth Week or other related websites.
Respondents reported fairly high levels of recent activity in arts, sports, culture and recreation (86.2%) with 59% being involved in more than one activity. Cultural activities had the highest rate of participation (65.6%), followed by arts activities (50.8%) and sports (35.9%).
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Key motivating factors for youth involvement in arts, sports, culture and recreation were:
important initiating factors
for youth involvement
- 74.9% friends
- 73.3% themselves
important sustaining factors
for youth involvement
- 72.2% themselves
- 63.7% friends
- 62.8% parents
Despite the non-random survey sample, these findings might still have some important insights for youth programming.
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Advice for getting less-active youth involved
- Given their high involvement rates, cultural & arts activities could be a very important “point of entry” for youth into other projects, programmes and services.
- Promote the personal and social benefits of participating in projects & programs.
- Using existing social networks of youth initially or already engaged may be very effective for outreach to less-active youth.
- Involving youth in the design, organization and implementation of the project or program may assist in outreach. Organizing youth will have strong motivation to get friends and others involved.
- Design projects to have multiple entry points and plan for ongoing outreach throughout a project’s run. This might help less-active or more-inhibited youth to get involved – as word gets out, the project gains momentum, and initial participants get their friends involved.
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Advice for sustaining participation
- With high numbers of youth involved in cultural & arts activities, it might be worthwhile to build in stronger physical activity components into arts & cultural programmes. Arts & cultural activities could be very important opportunities for improving the physical health of youth.
- Since the support of friends & family are important factors for sustaining involvement, more effort should be made to communicate what youth are up to in projects or programmes. Emphasize the personal, social & community benefits of involvement.
- Design opportunities to build & strengthen social, family and/or community networks in projects & programmes. Incorporate opportunities to involve friends, family & the community.
The Get Out! Ideas Factory continues to research factors that initiate and sustain youth involvement in projects and programmes, as well as the potential of the strategies mentioned here for outreach and sustained participation.
These findings will be reported in future issues of Get Out! the Ideas and here in the Get Out! Ideas Factory.
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Results from the Vancouver Youth Week Survey on youth activity & motivations
By Barb Hinton and the Vancouver Youth Week Organizing Committee
195 youth responded to the Vancouver Youth Week online survey. The respondents to the survey were predominantly residents of B.C. at a percentage of 92.7%, while 5% were from Manitoba and 6.9% were unidentified. The B.C. residents were primarily from the Municipalities of Vancouver (62.7%), Burnaby (11%), Richmond (9%) and Surrey (7%).
The results show that 86.2% of the respondents were involved in sports, arts or cultural activities in the last week (in relation to the date they filled out the survey); 10.8% were not involved; and 3.1% did not respond.
Of the involved participants, 30.8% were involved in one activity; 29.7% were involved in two activities; 16.4% in three activities; and 15.4% in four or more activities.
The types of activities the involved respondents had the option to choose from were sports, arts and culture. The results show that 35.9% of involved respondents participated in sports while 64.1% did not. A higher rate of involvement was reported in the arts with 50.8% participation and 49.2% non-participation. The highest participation was with cultural activities at a level of 65.6% with 34.4% uninvolved.
GetOut! Youth Reporters outreach to
other youth through their workshop
in June 2005.
Photo: Thor Larson, 2005
The initiating factors for youth involvement in sports, arts or cultural activities were led by friends at 74.9%, themselves at 73.3%, Parents at 30.3%, Teachers at 21% and youth workers at 9.7%.
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Additionally, 9.2% of respondents stated that other factors also influence their involvement. Of these influences, school and work are listed slightly more frequently than other factors such as a big sister / daughter, a boyfriend / girlfriend, curiosity / ambition / motivation, fun, helping to make the city better, mentors, the newspaper, print media, publicity, school and weather.
The factors that sustained the respondent’s involvement with sports, arts and culture are lead by themselves at 72.2%, friends at 63.7%, parents at 62.8%, teachers at 10.8%, other factors at 8.8% and youth workers at 6.7%.
The leading other influencing factors listed by respondents were work, family and fun, with other factors listed slightly less frequently such as providing motivation, a boyfriend / girlfriend, a coach, a dog, mentors, positive effects, it is interesting, satisfaction of making a positive contribution, school, and wanting to keep Canadian culture alive.
The factors that made a positive difference in the respondent’s lives were primarily friends at a level of 73.8% and followed by community at 47.2%, school at 45.6%, family at 42.6%, and employment at 27.2%.
Of the respondents, 7.7% listed that other factors also made a positive difference in their lives such at themselves, physical and mental health, family, the Duke of Edinburgh Award, their life, their own character, personal gratification, and self esteem.
The methodology of the survey was not random. It was a non-probability, convenient (or snowball) sample. The respondents represent a sample of individuals who were browsing the web site and/or related sites with links to the survey—such as www.bcyouthweek.com and www.vancouver.ca.
Youth Week ran from May 1-7 (BC) and May 4-10 (City of Vancouver), and responses to the survey were submitted from April 4 to May 13, 2005. Based on the response rate of 195 completions, the findings have a margin of error of +/- 6.95% at a 95% confidence interval.
The limitations of the survey at this point are that the age and gender descriptors were not requested by the online survey form. This restricts the analysis of the data in its current state. A follow up email was sent to respondents requesting that they reply with this data in order to qualify for the iPod draw. Approximately 25% of respondents have replied thus far with this additional data and further analysis will be undertaken in the near future.
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