Cognitive and Noncognitive Improvements Among Cadets at the Washington Youth Academy (WYA).

摘要

This study follows CNA's 2013 analysis of changes in a class of cadets at the Washington Youth Academy (WYA) National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Program (ChalleNGe). It analyzes data from a second class of cadets and draws conclusions regarding how participation in ChalleNGe affects youths cognitive and noncognitive growth. It also looks at the relationship between cognitive and noncognitive measures and the predictive power of noncognitive skills. Our findings suggest that the WYA ChalleNGe program has a substantial impact on cadets noncognitive skills; however, we found no noncognitive measures that strongly predict program completion. We found statistically significant improvements in four cognitive measures. Regarding the relationship between noncognitive and cognitive growth, we found that initial math efficacy is much more important in predicting final math scores for those with low scores at the end of ChalleNGe than for those with higher scores. We also found several gender differences.