Research

Current Projects

Critical Consciousness and Psychological Well-being Among Asian American College Students

Dr. Ni's Role: Principal Investigator

This research project examines the relationship between critical consciousness and psychological well-being among Asian American college students. Critical consciousness refers to an individual’s ability to reflect on and critically analyze social, political, and economic structures. Existing research has shown mixed findings regarding its relationship with psychological well-being. Additionally, there is a significant lack of research on critical consciousness that specifically focuses on Asian American youth. This gap is notable given that raising critical consciousness has been a central goal for young Asian American activists since the 1960s.

In this study, we employ a three-wave longitudinal design and a daily diary approach of surveys as well as semi-structured interviews to understand the developmental implications of critical consciousness as well as its impact in youth daily lives.

Youth Civic Engagement in the Online Context

Dr. Ni's Role: Principal Investigator

Today's youth grow up as digital natives. Due to its integral role in the lives of young people, the internet has become an emerging space for youth civic engagement in recent years. This project aims to advance our understanding of youths' contribution in the online context by developing an integrated conceptual framework and a multi-dimensional measure for online youth civic engagement. To achieve these objectives, we employed a combination of qualitative interviews and quantitative analyses of survey data with an exploratory sequential mixed-method approach. Participating youth are from gender, racially/ethnically, immigration-status, and economically diverse backgrounds in the U.S.

Recent Publications

Ni, Y., Tao, X., & Jiang, L. (2026). Patterns of online civic engagement: Differences in mental health among adolescents and young adults. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 107, 102008. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2026.102008

Ni, Y. (2026). Does the internet equalize youth’s civic engagement? Examining online and offline civic engagement among adolescents and young adults. Research in Human Development, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/15427609.2026.2739797

Ni, Y., Geldhof, G. J., Chandler, K. D., & Settersten, R. A., Jr. (2026). The multidimensional online civic engagement for youth (MOCE-Y) scale: development and validation. Applied Developmental Science, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888691.2026.2623250

Ni, Y., Geldhof, G. J., Settersten, R. A., Jr., & Tominey, S. L. (2026). Civic participation and meaning in life: Similarities and differences across diverse youth. Youth & Society, 58(5), 830–853. https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118X251387148

Berg, J., McMahon, R., Hung, C., Geldhof, G. J., Ni, Y., Chavarria, M., & Boyd, M. (2025). Adolescent sense of purpose and associations with characteristics and contexts of students within and across individuals: An intensive longitudinal study. Applied Developmental Science, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888691.2025.2505134

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