How does extracurricular participation impact academic performance

Extracurricular Activities Effects Student’s Name
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Abstract
A lot of researches have been trying to evaluate the impact of extracurricular activities on the students’academic performance. Generally, we assume that participation in co-curricular has a positive effect on students. Extracurricular activities are an essential part of school life. Many institutions have channeled a lot of resources and funds on these activities. However, some argue that extracurricular activities can have adverse effects on student’s performance given that the activities are time-consuming. Surprisingly, very few researches have been conducted on these areas due to lack of appropriate information and negligence. Researchers should, therefore, be encouraged to come out and conduct future investigations on the impact of extracurricular participation on academics. This would outspread the line of research in the education literature on the factors that affect a student’s academic performance.
This paper considers these issues by providing a study which shows that students managed to get higher grades, posted more top attendants got post-secondary opportunities and showed higher social developments when they participated in any other activities within their reach. The study suggests the impact of extracurricular activities regarding Social development, attendance, grades, and post-secondary opportunities.

Comparative studies are then conducted to establish the similarities and differences between the events under review.
Keywords: Extracurricular activities, academic performance, education literature, educational aspiration
Extracurricular Activities Effects Introduction
After reviewing several peers researched papers, it has become evident that student participation in extracurricular activities has a lot of advantages. The National Survey Student Engagement (NSSE) reports have been to look at the relationship between the performance of students and participation in extracurricular activities. Extracurricular Activities is used to refer to those activities which don’t form the central part of learning (Bartkus, Nemelka & Gardner, 2012). These are activities non-academic, but they are carried out within the school premises. They are also optional and do not form part of the grades a student will get.
Today a majority of students take part in one form of extracurricular activity or another. These activities have become part and parcel of the lives of most students. Many schools have set aside a lot of resources to help in boosting extracurricular activities. The schools invest these resources with the aim of churning out students who are all rounded. Many people are championing the need for having students who are proficient in out of class activities plus academics. There have been a lot of studies that have been carried out to investigate the impact of extracurricular activities on students. These studies are necessary given the amount of money and human resources that are being invested a year in year out by learning institutions to forester extracurricular activities. The reviews have tried to look at how these activities impact the grades of the students, their attendance, social development, and post-secondary activities. Different studies have come up with mixed results, but most tend to agree that ECAs generally have a positive impact on students.
This paper has the following order. First, I have written the methodology I used to research the data followed by discussions. The discussion has been broken down into four parts with each debate the effect of ECAs on grades, attendance, social development, and post-secondary activities. The study focused on the comparison between students who take part in co-curricular activities and those who don’t.
Methodology
The procedure for carrying out the research involved finding themes in the literature that would help the findings and the hypothesis. The approach of content analysis consists of identifying the required articles and also determining their frameworks. Research of academic literature was conducted using the keywords and titles. Such words include co-curricular activities, educational aspirations, and academic performance. Working papers, Books and other articles which are not part of the peer-reviewed process are included. The chosen materials were then carefully examined to determine the various theoretical models. It is however appreciated that the items discovered which talk about literature review could not be referenced. This was because although some crucial words might have led to the reports with the main idea, most of them may not be investigating the idea being analyzed on the paper. Only about twenty to thirty percent of the articles end up being useful in the research. That results in a lot of time being used in researching the right materials.
Grades
Numerous studies have been carried out to try and study the impact of co-curricular activities on the grades of students. These studies have yielded different results. While some argue that ECA has a positive effect on the ranks of student’s others insist that these activities have an adverse impact. There is research that came up will three fundamental standpoints to look at when analyzing the effects of ECAs on the grades of students. These standpoints include 1. ECAs have a negative impact on degrees 2. ECAs have a positive effect.
Broh (2002) argued that students could not focus on everything at one go. He found that students could either excel in academics or extracurricular activities (Broh, 2002). During those days participation in athletics was viewed highly by many students. Those who exceed in sports had higher social statuses within the schools. Knifsend & Graham, (2012) agreed with Broh and stated that some students invest a lot of time and energy in games at the expense of their academics (Knifsend & Graham, 2012). Coleman (1961) too agreed that it was hard for a student to excel in both. This negative impact of ECAs on Academics led to the establishment of the “2.0 Rule” where all students were supposed to attain a mean grade of 2.0 and above for them to be allowed to take part in co-curricular activities. Those who failed to satisfy this rule were ruled out from participating in any ECAs. Other researchers who support this theory include (Joekel, 1985). It is widely agreed that students who put in more effort and energy towards ECAs couldn’t perform well in a class for a student to excel in both a lot of balancing as required. However, it is complicated to strike a balance given that students have very little time at hand. This limited time meant that most students could not balance the two (Finn, 1989).
Hansen, Larson & Dworkin, (2003) on the other hand, differed with them and supported the argument that participation in ECAs had a positive impact on the performance of students. They argued that these positive impacts came about indirectly. There are several ways in which Hansen, Larson & Dworkin, (2003) demonstrated that ECAs had a positive effect. Firstly, they proposed that participation in ECAs instilled a lot of self-discipline, self-control, work ethic and perseverance in students (Hansen, Larson & Dworkin, 2003). Fredricks & Eccles (2010) supported this argument. They found that students participating in ECAs exhibited better organizational, planning and time management skills (Fredricks & Eccles, 2010). Students also had much more determination when they set out to achieve something. These positive attributes came into play even when the students are in class. argue that these import traits helped the students excel in academics. Secondly, the researchers demonstrated that this sense of belonging in the highest social status eventually forced the students to strive and excel in academics too (Fredricks, J.A., 2012). To maintain this high social status, the students, inevitably, had to excel in academics just as they do in sports. Lastly, they argued that participation in ECAs gave the students a chance to interact and socialized with fellow student thereby building significant ties and friendships. This network of school friends acted as a form of a deterrent in that it forced them to abide by the norms of the school. Students who exceed in ECAs knew that at all times many eyes were looking at them. This “check” eventually made these studies excel in academics.
Furthermore, participation in extracurricular activities gave students further positive traits such as those of always setting personal goals and analyzing a situation to decide what is needed to achieve the desired results. It helps students gain the ability to set a particular academic goal and work towards making it. Students who actively participate in ECAs had more resilience (Rutter, 1987). Resistance is the ability to respond positively to a stressful situation. Students gained this critical skill while participating in ECAs such as sports where strength is a necessity for success in that field. Excelling in ECAs gave students a self-confidence which they could channel to their academics and get positive results. Students developed a greater sense of belonging hence they were willing to push themselves even harder to score better grades.
Attendance.
Attendance is mainly concerned with the availability of a student in school. It is common sense that for students to acquire knowledge through learning, they have to be in school. From research, Farb argues that school attendance impacts the results of a student especially when the reason for the absence is not due to illness (Farb & Matjasko, 2012). There are plenty of items that do affect the level of attendance of students in schools. Some of the reasons may include social problems, anxiety of being in school, poor academic performance from time to time by a student, the shortage of driving force to perform well at school, parents who undermine education, climatological issues, low staff morale, poor socio-economic level, poor teacher-student relationship and many more other problems. Farb therefore argues that other factors in conjuction with extracurricular activities can cause absenteeism (Farb & Matjasko, 2012).
One of the ways that can be used to improve school attendance is by encouraging students to participate in extracurricular activities. (Killian, 2018) differs with Farb (Farb & Matjasko, 2012) in that extracurricular activities have a positive impact on the students since it helps them feel connected to the institution. Killian argues out that students have a higher chance of attending classes when they possess that feeling of connection to the school. Schools that have got a record of a large number of involvements in extracurricular activities that are based in school have low levels of absenteeism as compared to other schools. Notable extracurricular activities involve sports and community service.This is the case with Farb who tries to explain that cocurricular activities can keep students away from school through injuries or social disconnect with other students.
(Killian, 2018) Also states that these activities nourish school pride. Extracurricular activities give the student that feeling of wanting to belong or instead associated with his or her school. It even becomes better when the students perform exceptionally well in those activities. This encourages the students to always be there in school so that they can share the success enjoyed by the school team. It is with no doubt that this dramatically improves the morale of students to attend school sessions and therefore avoiding absenteeism.
Furthermore (Killian, 2018) adds that these activities give a platform for the teachers to develop better relationships and stronger ones with their students especially outside classwork. Participation in ECAs dramatically encourages attendance among the students as it helps them to avoid anxiety since they can relate directly to their teachers. It also enables the students to have the courage to share problems with their teachers that may be affecting them. Some of these problems as aforementioned may be the ones that contribute to the student not attending classes. Therefore, by doing this such problem can be solved hence avoiding absenteeism among the students.
(“Attendance improves when schools emphasize students’ physical fitness – Attendance Institute,” 2018) States that the level of school attendance rises when institutions encourage the physical fitness of the students. Physical fitness in most cases is usually gained through extracurricular participation in sports. According to a study done recently, in addition to being healthier students who engage in physical activity for close to an hour are more likely to attend classes regularly. This plays a huge role in enhancing their academic performance in school.
Besides this, there are some who argue that extracurricular participation has a negative impact on an academic performance about attendance among students (“Negative Aspects of Extracurricular Activities | Synonym”, 2018) argues out that although extracurricular do enhance a student’s experience, it may also end up in making the activity regarding time wholly consumes the student. This can even go to that extent of the student not being able to attend classes. A good example is a student having passion in drama, he or she may end up spending so much time at the auditorium to the extent of him or her not having time to catch up with his or her lessons in class. This, therefore, leads to absenteeism and hence a decline in academic performance.
(“Advantages and Disadvantages of Extracurricular Activities – WiseStep”, 2018) Argues out that some extracurricular activities result in tiredness and frustration among students. Apart from the tight schedule, some of these activities involve so much of physical stretching such as sports. These games at times may lead to injuries on the course of participation, therefore, affecting the health of the student. Once the student is injured or extremely worn out due to tiredness, he or she may end up missing classes. This will no doubt affect the academic performance of the student as a result of the student not attending classes.
social development
SEOW, Poh Sun and PAN, Gary (2014) stated that extracurricular activities are a vital part of bringing up an all rounded student. These activities enhance student’s lives. They enable students to create and sustain relationships with other people. Through sports, students learn essential characteristics such as hard work, teamwork, and perseverance. These traits are very educative and important in enhancing relationships with other individuals. At times, these relationships can breed adverse outcomes, but they are the most beneficial relationships. They create social networks for students. Spending time with peers and close allies creates motivation and hunger for success and therefore end up boosting academic performance. Teamwork is a valuable trait in social development. Cooperation, however, is a difficult characteristic to acquire. It enables students to appreciate the importance of one another and that they need each other for academic success. Dae-Seok Kim (2011) supports this argument and he states that such social traits can only be obtained through participation in extracurricular activities. Participation in social activities enables students to interact with individuals from different backgrounds and ethnic groups Holland & Andre (1987) found that diversity allows students to learn from such interactions and therefore enhancing their academic performances (Holland & Andre, 1987). Participation in Cocurricular activities enables students and parents to come together more often and create a close relationship. Children get attached to their parents and become more open to them. In the process, children can share their difficulties with their children and therefore relieved of stress They also get to learn from adults and thus improve their social development. Involvement of parents in their children’s lives breeds high academic performances. It also gives students a sense of belonging and they feel part of the society. Students learn to appreciate their role in society through such interactions with adults.
post secondaries opportunities
Gammie and Robertson-Miller (2003) found that as students become older, they begin to appreciate the importance of co-curricular activities. Co-curricular activities enable students to live a healthier life after graduation (Gammie and Robertson-Miller, 2003). Students need at least an hour of curriculum activities participation every day. This will allow them to stay for, feel less stressed and enjoy their sleep at night. As children grow, it is better to expose them to a variety of co-curricular activities so that they can participate in those activities that they enjoy. This participation in co-curricular activities will impact their lives forever. They develop positive habits useful throughout their professional careers after school.
Research showed that those students who participate in co-curricular activities make better decisions in their lives. Participation in these activities keeps them away from habits such as drug use and excessive drinking. The wiser choices enable those students to be successful in both their academics and even in their post-school lives.
Individuals who participate in social activities show lower rates of obesity as compared to those who don’t engage in such activities at all. Participation in these activities especially sports enables one to learn better nutritional habits and therefore live a healthier life even after secondary school. These allow such individuals to get more opportunities in life.
Participation in co-curricular activities such as sports can lead to a successful career post-secondary. Some individuals tend to venture into these activities and make successful careers. They end up being highly successful in life. Through these relationships., some individuals create long lasting relationships that are extremely helpful in shaping once career. Cocurricular activities, therefore, boost one social connection and bring individuals one step closer to their future employers.
Conclusion
Participation in extracurricular activities has shown to have a variety of positive impact on a student’s success and performances. Students learn a lot of variable traits associated with the co-curricular activities. Such characteristics include time management, risk-taking, teamwork and ability to socialize and make strong bonds with other members of the community. The students apply these qualities in all their lives and even boost their academic performances.
Some of these activities are found out to have a negative impact on students’ academic performance. The issue of consuming a lot of time and energy in focusing on these activities limits the time set for academics and therefore bring down the academic achievement. Some of the relationships lead to negative energy and bad company.
These studies should not be canceled, however. A right balance between the extracurricular activities and academics should be maintained such that all-around individuals are brought about and with proper academic credentials.
The research explored the impact of participation in extracurricular activities concerning social development, post-secondary opportunities, grades, and attendance. The outcome of the study showed that participation in these activities could boost academic performances but also has its detrimental effects.

References
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