THE DEVELOPMENT OF A PSYCHOLOGICAL SUPPORT PROGRAM FOR MOTIVATION AND MENTAL HEALTH OF ADOLESCENTS IN EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

Abstract

Background. The mental health and motivational functioning of adolescents living under prolonged wartime conditions constitute an important challenge for educational and psychological support systems. Extracurricular activities may provide meaningful contexts for social interaction, self-expression, competence development, and psychological resource activation; however, their integration with theoretically grounded psychological interventions remains insufficiently systematized. The present study addresses this gap by combining extracurricular activities with resource-oriented and motivational approaches to adolescent psychological support.

Aim. The study aimed to develop and theoretically substantiate a modular psychological support program for adolescents aged 10–16 years that integrates extracurricular activities with structured psychological interventions and to conduct a preliminary evaluation of its implementation in relation to motivation, anxiety, empathy, perceived social support, and emotion regulation.

Methods. The study involved 341 students in grades 5–9 from schools in the Kyiv region during the 2025–2026 academic year. The program was theoretically grounded in the BASIC Ph model of coping and resilience and Self-Determination Theory. Standardized measures included the Academic Motivation Scale, Toronto Empathy Questionnaire, Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale, Pediatric Symptom Checklist, Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale. The developed program comprised diagnostic, psychoeducational, activity-based, and monitoring modules and differentiated extracurricular activities according to adolescents’ psychological profiles. The pre- and post-implementation assessments represented partially overlapping anonymous repeated cross-sectional samples from the same private-school population. A non-equivalent public-school sample was used for cross-sectional comparison. Data were analyzed using independent-samples Welch’s t-tests, one-way ANOVA with Tukey HSD post-hoc comparisons, Pearson correlations, and Cohen’s d effect sizes.

Results. The findings demonstrated a mixed pattern of outcomes. Following the four-month implementation period, the private-school post-implementation sample showed higher amotivation (d = −0.25) and greater difficulties in emotion regulation (d = −0.32), providing no support for a uniform improvement in motivational or emotional-regulation outcomes. At the post-implementation assessment, students from participating private schools reported lower anxiety (d = −0.50) and higher intrinsic motivation across knowledge, achievement, and stimulation dimensions (d = 0.27–0.36) than the non-equivalent public-school comparison group. However, because baseline data were unavailable for the comparison group and school type was confounded with program exposure, these differences cannot be attributed to the intervention. Intrinsic motivation was positively associated with empathy (r = .39, p < .001) and perceived social support (r = .45, p < .001), whereas anxiety was positively associated with internalizing symptoms (r = .69, p < .001) and emotion-regulation difficulties (r = .56, p < .001). Accordingly, the hypotheses concerning overall pre–post improvements in anxiety and other targeted outcomes were not supported, whereas the hypothesized associations between intrinsic motivation, empathy, and social support were confirmed.

Conclusions. The study resulted in the development of a theoretically grounded and empirically informed prototype of a modular psychological support program integrating extracurricular activities, psychoeducation, resource activation, and continuous monitoring. Its conceptual contribution lies in combining BASIC Ph resource channels with Self-Determination Theory and in differentiating extracurricular activities according to adolescents’ psychological profiles and needs. The preliminary empirical findings do not provide sufficient evidence of program effectiveness and should be interpreted considering the non-randomized design, anonymous repeated cross-sectional samples, non-equivalent comparison group, reliance on self-report measures, and absence of individual-level intervention-dosage tracking. The findings nevertheless identify theoretically relevant relationships among motivation, social support, empathy, anxiety, and emotion regulation and provide a basis for further refinement of the intervention. Controlled longitudinal studies with matched or randomized groups, repeated measurements, extended follow-up, and participant-level monitoring are required to determine the program’s effectiveness and potential beneficial or adverse effects under wartime educational conditions.

Keywords: adolescent mental health; intrinsic motivation; extracurricular activities; psychological support; emotion regulation; perceived social support; resilience; school-based intervention; Self-Determination Theory; BASIC Ph model.

Date of manuscript submission: 15.06.2026Date of recommendation for publication: 21.07.2026
Date of publication: 30.07.2026