Extracurricular activities in school, do they matter?

Abstract

There is a large body of the literature which suggests that extracurricular activities (ECA) in schools have positive effects on student achievement; however, the majority of the research measured associations rather than causal effects. This study presents a robust methodological approach to determine whether student participation in extracurricular activities might have causal effect on academic outcomes and attitudes towards Literacy and Numeracy during secondary schooling. The results of this particular study could not provide conclusive evidence for causal effect of ECA on student performance. Nonetheless, the methodology presented in the paper does provide an effective research framework for measuring causal effects of a range of school based interventions and activities on student achievements and attitudes.