Investigating the role of gender moderator in the effectiveness of the Iranian positive youth development package on the components of social- emotional health

This study aimed to investigate the role of gender moderators in the effectiveness of the Iranian positive youth development package (IPYD) on the components of social-emotional health.

For this purpose, in a quasi-experimental design with pre-test, post-test, and follow-up stage, 60 male and female adolescents aged 15-17 years studying in the academic year 2009-2010 were randomly selected in Isfahan. First, all members of the experimental and control groups completed the Zhou and Ee (2012) Emotional-Social Competency Questionnaire, and then the experimental groups were trained with a researcher-made package for 16 sessions of 45 minutes. In the meantime, the control group benefited from the daily training of the school. At the end of the sessions and 40 days later, all groups completed the questionnaire again.

Findings showed that the package of the positive development of Iranian adolescence in the short term has led to an increase in the dimensions of social and emotional health in self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship management, and responsible decision-making in both genders, and in long term has caused an increase in all dimensions in girls (p<0.05).

It seems that the Iranian adolescent positive development package is a suitable package to strengthen the components of positive development, achieve emotional-social health, and reduce problems and issues in different areas of developmental periods and the subsequent costs for adolescents, their families, and society.Keywords: Development, Emotional health, gender, Positive psychology, Social health.