1877-0428 �� 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.03.485 Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 2 (2010) 3175���3179 Available online at www.sciencedirect.com WCES-2010 Youth leadership development in virtual worlds: A case study Selen Turkaya *, Devayani Tirthalia aTeachers College, Columbia University, New York, 10027, U.S.A Received October 26, 2009 revised December 2, 2009 accepted January 13, 2010 Abstract This paper discusses the impact of ���The Dream It. Do It Initiative��� (D.I.D.I.), an informal learning program implemented in Teen Second Life (TSL), on leadership development. We found support for using TSL as a venue for leadership exploration. Specifically, we found that venturers became aware of the community issues in these worlds they gained leadership skills such as teamwork, determination, and responsibility and they learned how to use their mistakes to improve their projects. We conclude that virtual worlds, as ���places for engagement���, can indeed be used to help youth explore their leadership potential with support from parents and educators. �� 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Virtual worlds youth leadership development 21st century skills virtual teams informal learning. 1. Introduction This paper discusses impact of ���The Dream It. Do It Initiative��� (D.I.D.I.), an informal learning program, on leadership development. D.I.D.I. promoted youth change-making by using 3D virtual worlds as sandboxes for youth to experiment with social initiatives. It inspired young people to design and launch their own lasting social ventures in Teen Second Life (TSL) enabling them to have the transformative experience of leading positive social change. Investment in developing leadership skills in teens and youth is considered to be an investment in the future of our society. One of the venues explored for youth leadership development is participation in community oriented social ventures, civic engagement or social activism (Garst & Johnson, 200 Mohammed, 2001). The business world has also looked at games and virtual environments as facilitators to develop leadership skills of the future. IBMs Global Innovation Outlook report (2007) contests that in today���s world which is distributed, global, virtual, faster paced, and fiercely competitive the leadership of the future, like in Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs), needs to be more task oriented and dynamic. There is much more to youth led organizations than preparing future leaders. As community-based youth organizations and youth activism have grown over the last two decades, youth���s role in the present as leaders and * Selen Turkay. Tel.: +01-212-678-3807 fax: +01-212-678-8227 E-mail address: st2282@columbia.edu

3176 Selen Turkay and Devayani Tirthali / Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 2 (2010) 3175���3179 change agents has become equally important (Conner & Strobel, 2007). The Youth Leadership Summit organized by United Nations in 2006, ���to engage young people in decisions about the future of their communities, regions, and our emerging global society���, is a step in this direction. These community based activities have provided youth the opportunity to explore identity, develop confidence, emotional skills, peer networks, and leadership and collaboration skills (Cassell et al, 2006 Dworkin et al, 2003). Although youth leadership has been studied by several researchers, there is little consensus about what leadership is. Miller (1975) conceptualized youth leadership skills under five domains - decision making, relationships, learning, management, understanding self, and group process. Many researchers (Seevers et al., 1995 Orr & Gobeli, 1986) have adapted this framework to fit their research objectives. Conner & Strobel (2007) while analyzing a community based after school program used a three dimensional model to analyze its impact on leadership skills - Communication and Interpersonal Skills Analytic and Critical Reflections and Positive Involvement in the Community. Another interesting model used in relation to corporate leadership is the Sloan Leadership Model that breaks leadership skills and actions in four categories: Visioning, Sense-making, Relating, and Inventing (Ancona et al, 2007). Drawing from these models and observations of emerging leadership in D.I.D.I. we decided to analyze and discuss leadership skills from the following aspects ��� innovation, planning and management, team work, communication, and understanding self/self reflection. 1.1. About the project The Dream It. Do It Initiative (http://www.genv.net/didi) is a partnership in Second Life (SL) between Youth Venture and Global Kids to improve health and healthcare. Youth Venture (www.genv.net), launched in 1996, inspires and invests in teams of young people to design and launch their own lasting social ventures. Global kids (www.globalkids.org) a non-profit organization, aims at developing youth to become global citizens and community leaders. The organization has become one of the pioneers in using virtual worlds in education and leadership. Through support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the D.I.D.I. Initiative provided young people the seed funding and the support they needed to launch their own ventures that would create lasting community benefits. The D.I.D.I process consisted of five main steps: attending workshops, developing a venture, presentation to a selection panel, venture launch, and building the movement. In the D.I.D.I. workshops conducted in TSL, youth identified health-related problems in their community (local, virtual or international) and brainstormed ideas to tackle the problems using their skills and interests. Then, they formed teams and developed detailed action plans for their venture projects. The workshops ended with teams presenting their ideas to a panel of peers and adults who determined whether the team���s venture was ready to launch. The project design allowed Ventures to take place entirely within the virtual world of TSL, in the real world, or some combination of the two. The objectives of the D.I.D.I. Initiative were to examine to what extent a virtual medium can promote youth change-making explore online/offline transferability of youth development and social initiatives and determine the extent to which online endeavours affected youth���s mindset about leadership and initiative. In this paper we will focus on leadership skills developed during teens' experience with the D.I.D.I. Initiative. Specifically, we discuss: 1. Leadership skills that youth gained throughout their D.I.D.I. venture process, 2. Teens��� perceptions about who is a leader / what it means to be a leader. 2. Methodology The participants in this project were between the age group of 13-18 years. We collected data in the form of pre- and post-surveys, documents of action plans, and interviews with team leaders. 41 D.I.D.I participants from 22 different teams (out of 39 teams) responded to the survey. The survey had Likert scale and open ended questions that captured teens��� experiences, change in the mindset about leadership and social initiatives, and skill gains. We analyzed quantitative data with SPSS 16. To analyze qualitative data, we created a list of deductive codes and sub- codes, based on the literature on leadership skills. The deductive codes were further supplemented with inductive codes that came up from the qualitative data. The data was coded using NVivo 8.