Education Commons^™

A Case Study Comparing The Life Skills Development And Knowledge In Youth Participants Of Horseless And Traditional Horse Programs In Utah, Haley M. Johnson, Kelsey L. Hall, Benjamin Scow

Journal of Human Sciences and Extension

This study compared four horseless and seven traditional horse participants from Washington County 4-H in Utah for horse knowledge gained and for the development of 10 life skills from Hendricks’s Targeting Life Skills Model: leadership, teamwork, self-responsibility, personal safety, problem-solving, decision-making, critical thinking, goal setting, communication, and concern for others. This study’s mixed methods design employed interviews to learn about life skill development and quantitative data from a 20-item horse knowledge quiz and demographic survey. The traditional horse youth showed greater development of leadership, self-responsibility, decision-making, goal setting, and communication than the horseless youth. Roughly half of the participants in …