Challenges and Opportunities in Assessing Youth Leadership
Abstract
Leadership is vital in any field or societal context, and understanding the core attributes of effective leaders is essential for leadership development. In the educational context, fostering leadership skills in youth helps them better understand their values, navigate decision-making, and improve communication. Current literature provides various frameworks for quantifying leadership development; however, applying these frameworks to teenagers with the support of technology remains underexplored. Here, we review and analyze existing methodologies for measuring leadership and examine how these approaches can be adapted to an educational setting for teenagers using technological tools. Our analysis reveals that computational approaches offer promising avenues for quantifiable leadership growth and consistent feedback in educational contexts. This text also incorporates insights from interviews conducted with young individuals as well as professionals in the field, providing a comprehensive perspective on the practical applicability and potential impact of these methodologies.References
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Arnold, K. A. (2017). Transformational leadership and employee psychological well-being: A review and directions for future research. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 22:381–393.
Bajcar, B. and Babiak, J. (2022). Transformational and transactional leadership in the polish organizational context: Validation of the full and short forms of the multifactor leadership questionnaire. Frontiers in Psychology, 13.
Barthakur, A., Kovanovic, V., Joksimovic, S., Zhang, Z., Richey, M., and Pardo, A. (2022). Measuring leadership development in workplace learning using automated assessments: Learning analytics and measurement theory approach. British Journal of Educational Technology, 53:1842–1863.
Benmira, S. and Agboola, M. (2021). Evolution of leadership theory. BMJ Leader, 5(1):3–5.
Bhatia, S., Olivola, C. Y., Bhatia, N., and Ameen, A. (2021). Predicting leadership perception with large-scale natural language data. The Leadership Quarterly.
Boyce, L. A., LaVoie, N., Streeter, L. A., Lochbaum, K. E., and Psotka, J. (2008). Technology as a tool for leadership development: Effectiveness of automated web-based systems in facilitating tacit knowledge acquisition. Military Psychology, 20(4):271–288.
Butts, C. (2008). Social network analysis with sna. Journal of Statistical Software, 24:1–51.
Byrne, B. (2005). Factor analytic models: Viewing the structure of an assessment instrument from three perspectives. Journal of Personality Assessment, 85:17–32.
Crawford, J. A. and Kelder, J.-A. (2018). Do we measure leadership effectively? articulating and evaluating scale development psychometrics for best practice. The Leadership Quarterly.
De Barros, V. A. M., Paiva, H. M., and Hayashi, V. T. (2023). Using pbl and agile to teach artificial intelligence to undergraduate computing students. IEEE Access, 11:77737–77749.
Efianda, A. and Iswahyuni, I. (2021). Political leadership and transactional leadership. International Journal of Multicultural and Multireligious Understanding.
Gençer, M. S. and Samur, Y. (2016). Leadership styles and technology: Leadership competency level of educational leaders. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 229:226–233.
Johansen, B.-C. P. (1990). Situational leadership: A review of the research. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 1:73–85.
Karagianni, D. and Montgomery, A. J. (2017). Developing leadership skills among adolescents and young adults: a review of leadership programmes. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 23(1):86–98.
Komives, S., Owen, J., Longerbeam, S., Mainella, F., and Osteen, L. (2005). Developing a leadership identity: A grounded theory. Journal of College Student Development, 46(6):593–611.
Kouzes, J. and Posner, B. (2003). Leadership practices inventory: LPI. John Wiley Sons.
Parra, E., Delgado, A. G., Carrasco-Ribelles, L., Giglioli, I. A. C., Marín-Morales, J., Giglio, C., and Raya, M. A. (2022). Combining virtual reality and machine learning for leadership styles recognition. Frontiers in Psychology, 13.
Pfeffer, J. (1977). The ambiguity of leadership. Academy of Management Review, 2:104–112.
Reitz, J. (1979). Chester a. schiesheim. the similarity of individual directed and group directed leader behavior descriptions. Group & Organization Management, 4:385.
United Nations (n.d.). Definition of youth. [link]. Fact Sheet. Acesso em: 21 de fevereiro de 2025.
van Dierendonck, D. (2011). Servant leadership: A review and synthesis. Journal of Management, 37:1228–1261.
Vella, S., Oades, L., and Crowe, T. (2012). Validation of the differentiated transformational leadership inventory as a measure of coach leadership in youth soccer. Sport Psychologist, 26:207–223.
Walumbwa, F., Avolio, B., Gardner, W., Wernsing, T. S., and Peterson, S. (2008). Authentic leadership: Development and validation of a theory-based measure. Journal of Management, 34:126–189.
Published
2025-04-07
How to Cite
SALES, Rodrigo; HAYASHI, Victor.
Challenges and Opportunities in Assessing Youth Leadership. In: BRAZILIAN SYMPOSIUM ON COMPUTING EDUCATION (EDUCOMP), 5. , 2025, Juiz de Fora/MG.
Anais [...].
Porto Alegre: Sociedade Brasileira de Computação,
2025
.
p. 730-740.
ISSN 3086-0733.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/educomp.2025.4915.
