Participation in school-based extracurricular activities and junior high school students' psychosocial adjustment to school: Effect of type of extracurricular activity and extent of involvement

Abstract

The present study focused on the effects of active involvement in athletic and non-athletic extracurricular activities (ECA). Junior high school students (N = 894) completed a self-report questionnaire that aimed to discover (a) whether participation in extracurricular activities had a positive influence in each domain of school life and on psychosocial adjustment to school, and (b) whether the association between interpersonal domains and psychosocial adjustment differed, depending on the nature of students' participation in extracurricular activities. The results suggested that students with active involvement in extracurricular activities also had higher scores on each domain of school life and psychological adjustment, compared to students not involved in extracurricular activities, whereas the scores of students with low active involvement in extracurricular activities were not higher than non-participants' scores. It was also found that participants in athletic extracurricular activities had higher scores on antisocial tendencies. Analyses of the association between interpersonal domains and psychosocial adjustment suggested that how student-peer and student-teacher relations influenced psychosocial adjustment differed depending on the condition of participation in extracurricular activities. Students' views concerning their class and student-other grader relations were not involved in this association. The discussion dealt with positive and negative aspects of extracurricular activities.