NCJ Number
187295
Date Published
September 1999
Length
24 pages
Annotation
After recommending strategies for youth service professionals in working with researchers, this paper describes three national youth-related studies that illustrate different research strategies, as well as national data collection efforts that include a youth-related component.
Abstract
Youth service professionals can promote the development of effective youth-related studies by becoming involved in decisions about what is studied, how researchers ask questions of youth, and how study results are interpreted. The following are some steps that agency staff can take to become involved in the important stages of the research process: expand personal knowledge about the research field; strengthen the relationship with the local research community; establish and maintain contact with funders of youth-related research; and serve as a resource to local researchers who conduct youth-related studies. The latter approach can involve identifying which researchers have interests closest to one's own, determining what resources could be brought to a partnership with a researcher, accessing new funding sources, accessing populations of youth whom researchers have had difficulty including in studies, accessing the community, and becoming a member of study teams. Special considerations are outlined for interviewing youth. Three projects profiled demonstrate the integration of traditional interview methodologies with an observational study, a secondary analysis of youth program evaluations, and a national survey study. The concluding section of this report contains brief descriptions of national ongoing or recently completed youth-related research studies.