Methodological strategies for linking superordinate life goals (values) and daily activities: a cross-sectional online study of adolescents

Adolescents pursue life goals through daily activities that pave the way toward a future or ideal self. Very little is known, however, regarding what youth consider to be important activities in support of their life goals. In the present study, we examined four psychometric methods of weighting and rank ordering activities associated with six life goals (Fitness, Helpful, Smart, Talented, Creative, and Social). Cross-sectional data were obtained from an online survey of 2,001 youth ages 13 to 15 who picked a life goal and then rated whether 21 activities align with their life goal. Eleven of the activities for each goal were selected by ChatGPT and mixed with 10 filler activities (drawn from the remaining life goals). Four weighting methods including an ipsative distribution-based approach, confirmatory factor analysis, item response theory, and multidimensional scaling were used to rank order activities. The distribution method produced upper quartiles based on standard deviation width. Select activities were relatively concordant for six life goals using the four methods, underscoring the uniformity and convergence of these different approaches. All four methods provided evidence of the uniformity of the select 11 activities. Findings are discussed in terms of the composition of adolescent life goals, their rank-order consistency across different weighting schemes, and their conceptual importance as we learn more about what youth consider relevant activities as they pursue their life goals.