Promoting Positive Youth Development: Relational Data Analysis (RDA)

• NCJ Number: 222443
• Journal: Journal of Adolescent Research Volume: 23 Issue: 3 Dated: May 2008 Pages: 291-309
• Author(s): William M. Kurtines; Marilyn J. Montgomery; Lisa Lewis Arango; Gabrielle Kortsch; Richard Albrecht; Arlene Garcia; Rachel Ritchie; Kyle Eichas
• Date Published: May 2008
• Length: 19 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Program/Project Description
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: For other articles in this issue, see NCJ-222439-42 and NCJ-222444-46.

Annotation

This article presents an overview of the origins and use of "relational data analysis" (RDA) as a means of unifying program data on youth development across dimensions (quantitative/qualitative, causal/structural, observation/interpretation, etc.) and phases of analyses (conceptual, theoretical, and research analyses) in the course of evaluating a youth development program (Miami Youth Development Program) for troubled youth in a "real-world" setting.

Abstract

Developed as part of the Miami Youth Development Program (YDP), RDA was devised to provide a unified framework under which developmental scientists involved in this project could identify patterns of qualitative change in the meaning and significance of life-course experiences of the multiproblem youth participating in YDP interventions. This article explains how evaluation researchers used RDA in developing qualitative methods for coding the openended interview response data from youth. It describes how researches used RDA in analyzing interview data so as to capture transformational change in the subjective meaning and significance of participants' life-course experiences. The overview of RDA presented in this article focuses on its basic forward movement through three analytical phases of RDA's core cycle (conceptual, theoretical, and research analysis). The intent of RDA as described is to develop practical qualitative measures and methods for collecting narrative expressions of subjective experiences that can be coded with a level of reliability and validity that parallels that of quantitative measures and methods. This results in a systematic measure of positive changes in human development and the coding of factors in those changes for diverse youth acting in and influenced by variable settings. This results in both the testing and revision of existing hypotheses about human development as well as the creation of new or integrated theories for future testing. 2 tables, 1 figure, and 19 references