Influence of Participation in Competitive Co-Curricular Activities on Self-Concept of Secondary School Students in Kenya

Abstract

Co-curricular activities are planned to improve on the attainment of the curriculum goals and objectives. Schools should aim for a holistic curriculum that develops a child mentally, physically, socially and morally to fit in the world of work and society. Many stakeholders in the education programme believe that co-curricular activities consume academic time and unnecessarily. Various studies have established that involvement in co-curricular activities is not entirely recognized in a number of schools and its influence on students’ self-concept is not evidently expressed through evidence-based facts to the teachers, students and parents. The purpose of the study was to examine the influence of participation in competitive co-curricular activities (i.e. sports, music and drama) on the self-concept among secondary school students in Central Region, Kenya. The study adopted the Ex-post Facto research design and data was collected through a self-concept inventory questionnaire and examination of school records from students’ participants (1,408) in the regional championships in central region Kenya. Data was analyzed using Independent t-test and Two-way ANOVA. The results indicated that participants had higher scores on self-concept (73.93±13.56) than non-participants (54.15±22.90), and t-test revealed that there was a significant difference between participants and non-participants self-concept level (957) =0.001, p<0.001. This implies that participation in co-curricular activities had a positive influence on students’ self-concept in reference to gender, school type, class and parental economic status. The findings also revealed that participants in drama had a higher self-concept compared to sports and music. Therefore, schools should encourage students to participate in competitive co-curricular activities.