Not everything helps the same for everyone: relevance of extracurricular activities for academic achievement

Abstract

Participation in organized Extracurricular Activities has contributed to improve academic achievement. However, this does not happen in the same way; it depends on sex, age, or parental educational level. Our objective is to know the importance of these factor interactions' in the explanation of academic achievement. The sample consisted of 1148 adolescents, aged between 12 and 18 years, 52% of whom were female. Participants completed the Extracurricular Activities questionnaire, and academic and sociodemographic data were collected. The results show that differences in academic achievement depend on the adolescent stage. In early adolescence, girls improve in academic achievement, as well as with better parental education, reading of books and activity duration. On the contrary, in the middle and late adolescence, academic achievement improves with not participating in collective sports and reduced activity breadth, although parental educational level follows the same trend as in the early adolescence. These results reinforce the evolutionary hypothesis of specialization in the choice of activities throughout adolescence. In this sense, some proposals for schools that advocate for greater integration of curricular and non-curricular elements are discussed.

El Modelo Primed Como Innovación Para La Educación No Formal

“…Porque el carácter se va desarrollando lentamente, es deseable diseñar prácticas educativas con la mirada en el horizonte y establecer ello como intocable. Frente a otras formas de utilización del tiempo libre, las actividades no formales conducen a un ISBN: 978-84-1122-022-4 abanico de resultados de desarrollo positivo y en rendimiento académico (Balaguer et al, 2020a).…”

Co-curricular activities and subjective well-being among university students

“…In contrast, girls were more engaged in artistic (Mello and Worrell 2008) civic and prosocial activities (Martinez et al 2007). In addition, Balaguer et al (2020) carried out a study and found that girls were more involved in individual sports activities as well as artistic activities than boys, whereas boys were more engaged in collective sports activities than their counterparts. Similarly, Behtoui (2019) conducted a study on Swedish young people and shown that boys were more engaged in athletic activities than girls, while girls were more engaged in religious and cultural activities than boys.…”

Positive Youth Development through Sports among Urban Poor Youth in Subang Jaya, Malaysia

“…Youth participation in sports has been associated with strengthening psychological, emotional, and achievement-related behavior and development. Balaguer et al (2020) discovered that adolescents who engage in sports exhibit increased interest in school during grades 10 to 12, as well as higher academic achievement when compared to non-participants. Additional research suggests that sports involvement consistently correlates with reduced rates of addiction, depression, and incidents of suicidal behavior (Jovanović et al, 2022).…”