Extracurricular Activities and Student Success: a Connection

Extracurricular activities are very popular with students from elementary school through college. These activities can run the gamut of things from sports to drama, from chess to yoga, and everything in between; extracurricular activities really cater to a student's individual interests, and there are groups for just about every imaginable interest. Extracurricular activities are normally conducted outside of the normal school day, are entirely voluntary, and students do not receive grades for participating in them (Holloway, 1999). Nevertheless, these activities remain extraordinarily popular, thereby reinforcing the notion that school is not just about grades to most students. However, despite the fact that extracurricular activities are not associated with academics (in most cases) and have nothing to do with grades, a growing body of research suggests that participation in extracurricular activities may in fact have a beneficial effect on a student's academic performance. This...
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