Research on Afterschool Programs in Korea: Trends and Outcomes

Abstract

Abstract Afterschool programs in Korea have been widespread and even regarded as being institutionalized recently. A clear evidence of this phenomenon is that quite a number of students and parents choose afterschool programs as the alternative to private tutoring. Therefore, this study aims to explore the recent research trends and outcomes on afterschool programs in Korea. The researchers reviewed and analyzed approximately one hundred recent studies on afterschool programs in Korea. One outstanding trend of research on afterschool program is, despite dominance of the studies using personally-collected data, the number of studies by using large-scaled national data has increased since the latter half of the 2000s. In addition, recent studies tend to be substantial in research topics and method; many of recent studies have examined the impact of afterschool participation on academic improvement and the reduction of private tutoring expenditure by using statistical methods. Those studies generally presented positive effects of afterschool participation on students’ academic achievement and the reduction of private education expenditure. Keywords: research on afterschool programs, educational effectiveness, afterschool participation, academic achievement