AI Insight
This paper presents a protocol for an eight-week intervention program that combines artificial intelligence support with traditional counseling to promote positive youth development in high school students. The intervention uses daily AI-delivered micro-nudges and brief coaching dialogues alongside weekly counselor sessions, measuring outcomes through pre-post assessments of self-regulation and school belonging, plus daily ecological momentary assessments. The study employs a mixed-methods feasibility design intended to demonstrate whether the intervention mechanisms function in real-world school settings rather than establish causal efficacy.
Why it matters
This research protocol demonstrates how AI technology could be integrated into school-based mental health and developmental programs to extend the reach of human counselors. If validated through future randomized controlled trials, such AI-supported interventions could make personalized youth development support more scalable and accessible in educational settings.
Understand the Science
Positive Youth Development (PYD) conceptualizes youth as agentic, developmentally flexible individuals whose functioning reflects dynamic person–context transactions. Rapid developments in AI now offer new opportunities to support counselors and extend intervention-based programs. The purpose of this paper is to outline an eight-week AI-supported PYD intervention for high school students and frame a feasibility-oriented mixed-method outcome research design. The model integrates daily AI micro-nudges, short voluntary micro-coaching dialogues, and one weekly 10–15-min counselor mini-session. Trait-level outcomes (self-regulation and school belonging) are assessed pre–post; state-level micro-regulation is assessed daily via Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA). Quantitative analysis uses Lakens’s generalized within-subject effect-size formulation and baseline trend-corrected Tau-U; qualitative analysis uses deductive thematic analysis. The design is intended to demonstrate whether mechanism-consistent developmental micro-arrangements occur in naturalistic conditions rather than to test causal efficacy. This paper provides a research-ready protocol for future randomized controlled trials in AI-supported school-based intervention program.
Source: Artificial intelligence-based positive youth development intervention protocol in school settings