Most youth development programs strive to promote thriving, but scientific inquiry into how they achieve this aim is rare and often complicated by nuanced program structures and delivery. Across two studies, we explored how one thriving indicator, having a sense of purpose in life, may be cultivated by a statewide 4-H program. In Study 1, an inductive text mining approach called latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) was used to content analyze 63 4-H practitioners’ definitions of purpose and focus group conversations about how the program fosters this sense in youth. In Study 2, 113 4-H participants (aged 12–18 years, M_age = 14.77; 66% female) reported their purpose exploration and commitment and the extent to which they have engaged with particular program experiences. The LDA suggested educators believe 4-H fosters purpose by offering diverse and transformative activities that equip youth with key resources. Youth reports largely corroborated these beliefs: Correlational analyses revealed youth who felt they acquired life skills in 4-H reported greater purpose commitment, whereas youth who felt they had access to older youth with long-term aspirations reported greater purpose exploration. Implications for how 4-H and other programs might scaffold activities to promote youth purpose are discussed.

大多数青年发展计划都在努力促进繁荣，但是对如何实现这一目标的科学询问很少，而且往往因细微的计划结构和交付情况而变得复杂。在两项研究中，我们探索了一项州范围内的4-H计划如何培养一种具有生活目标感的蓬勃发展指标。在研究1中，一种称为潜在狄利克雷分配（LDA）的归纳式文本挖掘方法用于内容分析63位4-H从业者的目的定义，并就该程序如何在年轻人中培养这种意识进行了焦点小组对话。在研究2，113 4-H的参与者（年龄12-18岁，中号_年龄= 14.77; 66％的女性）报告了他们的目标探索和承诺以及与特定计划经验的接触程度。LDA建议教育工作者相信4-H通过提供多样化和变革性的活动为青年提供关键资源来促进目标。青年报告在很大程度上证实了这些信念：相关分析显示，认为自己获得了4-H生活技能的青年报告了更大的目标投入，而认为自己可以长期抱有远见的青年报告了更大的目标探索。讨论了对4-H和其他程序可能如何脚手架活动以促进青年目的的含义。