The Active School Flag programme fulfilled most peer leader expectations by providing a comfortable learning environment and unexpected personal growth opportunities, but the expectation that ASF would become more recognizable among the school community was unfulfilled.
Key Findings
Results
The ASF peer leadership class fulfilled peer leaders' expectations by providing a comfortable learning environment for skill and competency development.
Data were collected from peer leaders' focus groups and teacher interviews conducted at both the beginning and end of an academic year.
Reflexive thematic analysis was used to analyze qualitative data from multiple stakeholder perspectives.
The comfortable learning environment was identified as a consistent theme across both peer leader and teacher data sources.
Results were synthesized using situated expectancy-value theory (SEVT) to compare initial expectations with end-of-year experiences.
Results
Navigation of implementation challenges resulted in unexpected personal growth opportunities for peer leaders, including the development of problem-solving skills.
Problem-solving skill development was identified as an unanticipated outcome, not among peer leaders' initial expectations.
This finding was characterized as 'unexpected personal growth opportunities' arising from challenges encountered during programme implementation.
The study framed these challenges as added-value complexities of student-led initiatives.
This outcome was identified through comparison of baseline expectations with end-of-year outcomes using SEVT as an analytical framework.
Results
Peer leaders' expectation that the ASF programme would become more recognizable among the school community was not fulfilled by the end of the academic year.
At the outset, peer leaders anticipated that ASF would gain greater visibility and recognition within the school community.
This expectation remained unmet by the end of the academic year, representing a gap between anticipated and actual outcomes.
The unfulfilled expectation regarding programme recognition was identified as a potential influence on peer leaders' motivation for their role, consistent with SEVT.
The finding led to a recommendation that school management should formally recognize peer leaders.
Discussion
Situated expectancy-value theory (SEVT) provided a framework for understanding how the alignment or misalignment of expectations and outcomes can influence peer leaders' motivation for programme involvement.
SEVT was used both to frame the study design and to synthesize qualitative findings.
The theory was applied to examine how outcomes meeting or failing to meet expectations affects sustained motivation in the peer leader role.
The authors conclude that 'SEVT extends understanding of ways to encourage and sustain peer leaders' programme involvement.'
The application of SEVT to peer leadership in whole-of-school physical activity programmes is presented as a contribution of the study.
Conclusions
The study identified that school-based programmes need to resource and support peer leaders when undertaking challenging tasks, and that formal recognition by school management is needed.
These recommendations emerged from analysis of gaps between peer leader expectations and actual experiences.
Lack of formal recognition was connected to the unfulfilled expectation of programme visibility within the school community.
The need for resourcing and support was linked to the challenges peer leaders encountered during ASF implementation.
The Active School Flag (ASF) programme is described as a whole-of-school physical activity initiative for second-level schools in Ireland involving adolescents as peer leaders.
What This Means
This research studied teenage students who acted as peer leaders in the Active School Flag (ASF) programme, a school-wide physical activity initiative in Irish secondary schools. The researchers wanted to understand how taking on this leadership role affected the students' skills, health perceptions, and school experience, and whether the experience matched what students expected when they started. They used a theory called situated expectancy-value theory (SEVT), which holds that whether outcomes match expectations can affect how motivated people are to keep doing something. Data were collected through focus groups with peer leaders and interviews with teachers at the start and end of a school year.
The study found that the peer leadership programme largely met students' expectations by creating a supportive and comfortable place to learn. Interestingly, when students ran into difficulties implementing the programme, this led to personal growth they had not anticipated, particularly in problem-solving skills. However, one expectation went unfulfilled: students had hoped the ASF programme would become better known and more visible across their school community, but this did not happen by the end of the year.
This research suggests that student-led school programmes can deliver real personal development benefits beyond physical activity, but that schools need to actively support and formally recognize the students taking on these leadership roles. When peer leaders' efforts go unacknowledged by school management, it may undermine their motivation to stay involved. The findings also suggest that using expectancy-value theory can help programme designers better understand and sustain student engagement in leadership roles within school health initiatives.
Check Your Own Numbers
Upload your bloodwork. We'll cross-reference your results against this study and 4,700 others.
McNally K, Murtagh E, Ng K, Grady C, Woods C. (2026). Personal Development of Adolescent Peer Leaders of a Whole-of-School Physical Activity Programme: Expectations Versus Outcomes.. The Journal of school health. https://doi.org/10.1111/josh.70216