Poster #34 - Examining the Importance of a Summer Camp Experience on Social-Emotional Development across Four Years

• In Event: Poster Session 18

Abstract

Summer camp has long been viewed as a developmentally enriching summertime setting for youth. Indeed, researchers have examined the benefits of camp attendance for over 100 years (Paris, 2008). Recent investigations have sought to understand the characteristics of the summer camp setting that support development (e.g., Sibthorp et al., 2020), as well as identify the long-term impacts of attending camp from the perspectives of former campers (e.g., Warner et al., 2021). There is thus some reason to expect that experiences at summer camp may have enduring benefits for youth who attend. Specifically, there is reason to believe that common qualities of camp linked to learning (Sibthorp et al., 2020) may be linked to outcomes years after camp attendance; however, little research has systematically examined this question. The purpose of this study was therefore to examine the associations between summer camp quality in 2018 and adolescents’ social-emotional outcomes over four years.
Data were drawn from a longitudinal study of summer camp participants. We collected the data used in this study from youth via online surveys once a year from 2018 through 2021. Our outcome variables include social-emotional measures of social awareness, independence, willingness to try new things, and grit, which we gathered data on every fall. Our main predictor was camp quality, which was a latent variable that used composite score indicators of youth reported levels of engagement, sense of belonging, supportive youth-staff relationships, opportunities for action-based experiential learning, and opportunities for reflection-based experiential learning at camp. Because these variables tended to covary, we elected to consider camp quality holistically. We specified a structural equation model linking summer camp qualities in 2018 to social-emotional outcomes in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, including autoregressive paths for each social-emotional outcome. Control variables included grade, gender (male/female), race (white/non-white), and family income, as well as outcome levels at the prior wave.
Results showed that camp quality in 2018 was positively associated with outcomes over several years, with the most enduring links emerging for affinity for nature, willingness to try new things, grit, and child friendships. For example, comparing youth who entered summer 2018 with similar levels of willingness to try new things, those who reported higher camp quality than their peers in 2018 were still reporting higher levels of willingness to try new things than those peers in Fall 2021. For most outcomes, cumulative effects were driven by significant short-term associations between camp quality and outcomes that carried forward over time. These results highlight that high-quality summertime youth programming may shape important aspects of social-emotional development for years. This may have implications for policy related to summertime programming, and illustrate the potential impact of investing in high-quality summertime programming for children and youth. Future research should consider how quality experiences in summer programs shape youths’ decision-making about future OST involvement, which may help explain these enduring connections.

Authors

• Robert P Warner, University of Utah
  Presenting Author

• Bryn Spielvogel, University of Utah

• Jim Sibthorp, University of Utah

• Laurie Browne, American Camp Association