Extracurricular Activities: Effects on Learning Achievements
Historical development of extracurricular activities The educators' negative attitude
was a serious hindrance for development of extracurricular activities at the beginning. Great pedagogues of the past were sure that clubs and hobbies prevent students from devoting more time to their studies and concentrating on academic disciplines. For this reason, previously most extracurricular activities were expected to be based on curricular activities and contribute to them somehow. These might have been drama or debate clubs as well as conducting experiments in laboratories after classes. Nowadays most people and a lot of educators among them realize the positive impact of various kinds of extracurricular activities on students' academic performance and, consequently, their learning achievements. A number of studies have demonstrated the influence of students' involvement in out-of-school activities on their GPA and academic aspirations. Researchers established positive relationship between extracurricular activities and students' academic performance. It appeared to be that devoting several hours a week to their hobbies, learners might improve their motivation and increase the effectiveness of the following learning process significantly. Positive effects of involvement into extracurricular activities Some contemporary educators did not manage to get rid of their misconceptions concerning the negative impact of students' participation in out-of-school activities on their learning achievements. For example, one of the biases is that top students are not expected to go in for sports. Teachers could discard their outdated prejudices considering the following results of scientific researches: 1. Active participation in extracurricular activities in most cases resulted in improvement of GPA and academic aspirations. 2. Students' involvement in out-of-school activities reduced their absenteeism and increased their college attendance. 3. Extracurricular activities proved to be a significant component of student's personal development, having impact on the process of adolescent's socialization and academic performance.
Extracurricular Activities: Effects on Learning Achievements