Examining the effects of extracurricular activities on academic achievement, attendance record, and learner engagement among the english majored students in huflit graduation paper

Ministry of Education and Training HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES GRADUATION PAPER EXAMINING THE EFFECTS OF EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES ON ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT, ATTENDANCE RECORD, AND LEARNER ENGAGEMENT AMONG THE ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS AT HUFLIT Submitted by: Nguyen Thi Hong Tuoi Student ID: 14DH710024 Major: Business English Supervisor: Mr Nguyen Thuong Tri, M.A Ho Chi Minh City - 2019 DECLARATION I certify that the attached material is my original work No other person’s work or ideas have been used without acknowledgement Except where I have clearly stated that I have used some of this material elsewhere, I have not presented this for assessment in another course or unit at this other institution Date: June 18th, 2019 Name/signature i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my sincere gratitude for prestigious guidance of MA Nguyen Thuong Tri Additionally, I would also like to express my deepest thanks to Foreign Languages Department at HUFLIT, MA Nguyen Thanh Tu in particular, for their cooperation in data collection process June 18th, 2019 ii TABLE OF CONTENT DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii LIST OF TABLES iv LIST OF FIGURES v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi ABSTRACT CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Definition of EAs 2.2 The relationship between EAs and academic performance 2.3 Need for the present study CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY 3.1 Methods 3.2 Setting and Study Sample 3.3 Procedures 10 3.4 Statistical Analysis 10 CHAPTER IV: RESULTS 12 4.1 Overall views on student involvement in EAs 12 4.2 Outcome differences across the student roles in EAs 18 CHAPTER V: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 30 CHAPTER VI: EVALUATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 33 5.1 Strong points of the study 33 5.2 Limitations 33 5.3 Recommendations 34 CHAPTER VII: CONCLUSION 36 REFERENCES 37 APPENDIX 39 iii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Sample distribution by gender, major, year at university 12 Table 2: Impacts of involvement in EAs on organizers’ GPA classification, attendance rate, and learner engagement (from the highest to the lowest ranking means of the organizer group) 19 Table 3: Level of organizers’ involvement in EAs 20 Table 4: Impacts of involvement in EAs on leaders’ GPA classification, attendance rate, and learner engagement (from the highest to the lowest ranking means of the leader group) 22 Table 5: Level of leaders’ involvement in EAs 24 Table 6: Impacts of involvement in EAs on participants’ GPA classification, attendance rate, and learner engagement (from the highest to the lowest ranking means of the participant group) 25 Table 7: Level of participants’ involvement in EAs 26 Table 8: Impacts of involvement in EAs on observers’ GPA classification, attendance rate, and learner engagement (from the highest to the lowest ranking means of the observer group) 28 Table 9: Level of observers’ involvement in EAs 29 iv LIST OF FIGURES Chart 1: Academic performance 13 Chart 2: Attendance record 14 Chart 3: Level of involvement in EAs 15 Chart 4: Learner engagement 17 Chart 5: Sample distribution by the student roles (Organizer and non-organizer group) 18 Chart 6: Sample distribution by the student roles (Leader and non-leader group) 21 Chart 7: Sample distribution by the student roles (Participant and non-participant group) 24 Chart 8: Sample distribution by the student roles (Observer and non-observer group) 27 v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EAs: Extracurricular activities GPA: Grade Point Average HUFLIT: Ho Chi Minh City University of Foreign Languages – Information Technology SPSS: Statistical Package for the Social Sciences vi ABSTRACT Although a huge plethora of research has shown that student involvement in extracurricular activities (EAs) is overwhelmingly beneficial to developing well-rounded individuals in the educational environment, there is an assumption that EAs distract them from their primary duty as a student, thus leading to lower academic performance This study examined grade point average (GPA) classification, attendance record, and learner engagement among English-majored students at Ho Chi Minh City University of Foreign Languages – Information Technology (HUFLIT) A total of 100 Englishmajored students participated in this study during the second semester of the academic year 2018 – 2019 to determine if there is a negative correlation between EAs and student responsibility The research divided the sample into four groups: organizer, leader, participant, observer Mann Whitney U Test and descriptive statistics were used to give a breakdown of collected data with assistance of statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) The findings show that the most active group (leader) has noticed much more positive impact of EAs on their confidence and enthusiasm for learning, compared to nonleader groups Although larger time commitment to EAs did make leaders skip class more frequently than non-leader population, their absenteeism can be justified by many reasons Further research is needed, but the findings of this study partially dispel some doubts about the positive impact of EAs, providing educators stepping stones to boost academic outcomes through promoting outof-class activities CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION As the 21st century is the era of intellectual civilization with rapid growth in the field of science and technology, Vietnam is facing great opportunities as well as challenges to successfully adapt to the 4.0 industry The development of modern industry and national construction requires us to create high-quality human resources As a condition for the basic element of this revolution, educational development is one of the driving forces of industrialization and modernization One proven factor greatly affecting all the prerequisite conditions to boost academic growth is EAs in schools Being aware of the importance of EAs, HUFLIT has promoted a wide range of beneficial and interesting activities over recent years More specifically, school leaders always encourage students to devote themselves to EAs which are designed to endow students with qualities to meet the expectations set by social standards Dynamism and creativity, therefore, are the most striking and distinguishing features of undergraduates and graduates at HUFLIT The positive benefits attract the interest of many educational leaders and policy makers seeking ways to enhance student’s development Most individuals seem to agree that EAs will continue to hold an important role in education As noted in the research conducted by Massoni (2011), positive effects commonly include positive thinking, better scores, school completion [10] Bakoban et al (2015) indicated that EAs offered by universities play an essential part in the academic advancement [3] Likewise, An et al (2016) also identified the positive effects of student participation on the academic results at Can Tho University of Technology [1] The primary duties of students at colleges, however, is to receive academic knowledge and earn a degree It is not surprising then that undergraduates tend to prioritize academic duties rather than EAs Although it is worth noting that student involvement is overwhelmingly beneficial to developing well-rounded students, there is a widely held assumption that EAs require too much time and effort, thus ultimately hinder students from performing well at schools A study conducted by Harnett (1965) supported this claim The research discovered that lowered student achievement can be originated from too much involvement in EAs [9] Other noticeable research done by Braden (2017) emphasized that decreasing outcomes of engagement in EAs when students cannot adapt to finding a balance between school duties and out-of-class activities [5] Like many other pieces of research, most findings only focus on the impact of EAs on student learning outcomes overseas while little work carried out to identify the possibility of distractions from school work caused by EAs in Vietnam Due to the significance of the issue, lack of empirical surveys to measure the effects of EAs offered by private universities in Vietnam, this research aims to measure and identify the impact of EAs on student performance 4.2.5 Observer group Chart 8: Sample distribution by the student roles (Observer and non-observer group) Chart illustrates the student population by the roles in EAs (Observer and non-observer group) As shown in the chart, the number of students in the observer group was 27, while the figure for the other group was 73 27 Table 8: Impacts of involvement in EAs on observers’ GPA classification, attendance rate, and learner engagement (from the highest to the lowest ranking means of the observer group) Observer group Mean Yes No Yes No Yes 3.222 3.521 1.519 1.726 3.630 No 3.904 Yes 3.630 No 3.904 Yes 3.556 No 3.685 Enthusiasm for learning Yes 3.519 No 3.630 Responsibility for self-study Yes 3.481 No 3.438 Confidence in public Yes 3.444 No 3.959 Yes 3.333 No 3.877 Yes 3.222 No 3.452 Yes 3.222 No 3.247 Yes 3.111 No 3.671 GPA classification Skip class Language acquisition Useful background information Learner engagement Active listening Teamwork skills Sense of belonging Responsibility for homework Leadership skills 28 Asymp Sig (2-tailed) 0.242 0.293 0.040 0.106 0.361 0.427 0.692 0.009 0.006 0.110 0.892 0.007 Table illustrates the processed data of observer group’s responses to the two questions (‘Which group is your GPA in?’, ‘How often you skip class due to participation in EAs?’) and 10 statements of the learner engagement section As shown in Table 8, the differences between two groups are statistically significant in terms of four statements in learner engagement section (confidence in public, teamwork skills, leadership skills and language acquisition) With respect to the four statements in learner engagement section (confidence in public, teamwork skills, leadership skills and language acquisition), observer group has lower ranking mean, compared to nonobserver population Additionally, the differences between two groups are statistically significant (p = 0.009, p = 0.006, p = 0.007, p = 0.04 respectively) In brief, there are enough evidences to conclude that leaders have noticed less positive effects of involvement in EAs on their confidence, teamwork skills, leadership skills and language acquisition, compared to non-observer group Table 9: Level of observers’ involvement in EAs Observer group Mean Yes 1.370 No 1.111 Weekly hours of EAs Asymp Sig (2-tailed) 0.060 Table illustrates the processed data of observer group’s responses to the question: ‘How much time you spend on EAs per week?’ As shown in Table 9, observer group has lower ranking mean, compared to non-observer population However, the difference between them is not statistically significant (p = 0.06 > 0.05) 29 CHAPTER V: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION Research questions Do EAs hinder students from performing well at schools in terms of GPA classification, attendance rate, and learner engagement? Are there any differences in GPA classification, attendance rate, and learner engagement across different roles of students in EAs? Findings and discussion The analysis of GPA classification, attendance rate, and learner engagement showed that student involvement in EAs, from an overall view, not distract students from study The two categories ‘Fair’ and ‘Fairly good’ together made up over three quarters of the responses Additionally, the most frequently reported answer to the question ‘How often you skip class due to participation in EAs?’ was ‘Never’ However, all the ranking means of 10 statements of the learner engagement section were below 4.0 (Agree) What stands out of the data is the weak correlation between EAs and responsibility for homework (Mean =3.24) One of the underlying causes originated from the fact that materials used in the class were not the content of EAs Another factor might be associated with relatively low level of learning autonomy among students Another significant reason probably lies in the content of homework Reva (2010) indicated that students generally not like exercises related to grammar, vocabulary, and monotonous lectures [12] As an inevitable consequence, responsibility for homework fell at the bottom of the list Fortunately, language acquisition (the top benefit of EAs) had ranking mean closely equal to 4.0 (Agree) The finding indicates that EAs indeed have somewhat positive effects on students’ new language acquisition As Reva (2010) suggested, students find EAs useful for their process of learning a language because they need more contact time and practice after class time for 30 better language acquisition [12] To get further analysis of the relationship between student achievement and EAs, data was broken down by the roles of students in the nest question From an overall perspective, it is obvious that while organizer and participant group exhibit no striking feature, there were significant differences in the level of involvement, attendance rate, and learner engagement among leader and observer population To be more detailed, observer group finds EAs much less useful for some aspects of the learner engagement (confidence in public, teamwork skills, leadership skills and language acquisition), compared to non-observer group This may be explained by the significantly lower level of involvement in EAs among this group Obviously, taking part in EAs in capacity as observers blatantly leads to lower exposure to a vast array of beneficial activities In stark contrast, the statistic reveals considerably higher level involvement in EAs among leader group Interestingly, larger time commitment does not bar them from achieving high score Although there is no statistically significant difference in GPA classification between leader and non-leader group, it is worth noting that the ranking mean of leaders’ GPA was by far the greatest, with 4.0 (Fairly good) In addition, most leaders agree and strongly agree that EAs are beneficial to their engagement in learning As regards the former, leader group skipped classes more frequently than nonleader population Achieving academic competence while skipping classes more regularly may lead to the assumption that members in the leader group are largely identified as gifted individuals; therefore, it is not surprising that their GPA classification was higher than others’ However, the absenteeism might be explained by permission for students to miss one to two lectures per class Besides, most leaders agree and strongly agree that EAs stimulate their 31 enthusiasm for learning Additionally, the ranking mean of missed class (Mean =2.2) was not too high Most of them rarely or sometimes skipped classes due to participation in EAs In short, significantly higher level of skipped classes due to commitment to EAs, compared to the other group, does not necessarily means that lower engagement in learning among leaders 32 CHAPTER VI: EVALUATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 5.1 Strong points of the study - The goal of the study is to ascertain the assumption that EAs hinder students from performing well at schools The findings indicate that my purpose has been achieved - The results might be deemed importance to educators in providing them necessary background to encourage students to get involved in out-of-class activities and dispel the false belief that EAs exert detrimental impact on academic outcomes 5.2 Limitations There were major limitations that could impact the results obtained - The first one was that the researcher could not check whether students’ responses were correct or not due to confidentiality Besides, there were no incentives for students to be honest with their answers, some might not report their grades and level of involvement in EAs correctly - The second limitation was that the subjects of this study include only the English-majored students who are a small sample of the total students in a university Consequently, the results could not reflect other students’ opinions and participation in general - Another limitation is the method used in the study The researcher included only quantitative method; therefore, a deeper understanding of EAs and students’ attitudes toward available activities cannot be reported - Finally, academic performance was reported under ordinal data (GPA classification from ‘Fail’ to ‘Excellent) This results in a less accurate assessment, compared to ratio scales (GPA number from to 10) 33 5.3 Recommendations 5.1.1 Recommendations for practice - Including classroom materials in the content of EAs - Organizing challenges suiting students’ proficiency level (especially underachieving individuals’) Activities should bring students a feeling of enjoyment, success, and belonging - There should be an official page offering detailed information about all EAs organized at HUFLIT Apart from basic information, reviews on activities and list of high academic performance of active members should also be included 5.1.2 Recommendations for future research - Firstly, the researcher believes that a survey should track the effects of EAs on student achievement over the 4-year period for the sake of accuracy In this way, the results will be more objective and accurate - Secondly, further studies should use a bigger sample size in different faculties All kinds of approach to problems in a particular educational environment will clearly not work The larger size of students involved in the survey is, the more objective results the survey gets - Thirdly, there should be an in-depth exploratory study examining how specific activities affect the program outcomes There will be a wide range of EAs in the near future and the educational leaders will have to select some activities that improve academic achievement In that case, studies that identify and bring out the most effective programs for academic achievement are completely necessary 34 - Finally, future studies should explore barriers inhibiting the efficacy of student participation in EAs Apart from the wrong belief that EAs may exert adverse impact on academic outcomes, other contributing factors deterring students from out-of-class activities must be identified in order that sensible solutions will be put forward 35 CHAPTER VII: CONCLUSION The fear that EAs may exert adverse impact on academic outcomes makes some students refrain from out-of-class activities The goal of the research, therefore, is to ascertain this claim Despite a body of argument about findings of previous research on EAs, the results of this study show that larger time commitment to EAs does not bar students from performing well at school In fact, some aspects of learner engagement seem to be positively related to student involvement Thus, educators should promote EAs and encourage students to participate in these activities more actively Anyhow, the researcher strongly believes that this study might not reflect a comprehensive view of the impact of EAs on students due to the limited research time and small sample size Further research is needed to discover how different types of activities affect the program outcomes and indicate some new factors preventing students from involving in EAs 36 REFERENCES An, N T T., Thu, N T N, Oanh, D T K & Thanh, N V (2016) Những Nhân Tố Ảnh Hưởng Kết Quả Học Tập Của Sinh Viên Năm I-II Trường Đại Học Kỹ Thuật - Cơng Nghệ Cần Thơ Tạp chí Khoa học Trường đại học Cần Thơ, 41: 82-89 Al-Ansari, A., Al-Harbib, F., AbdelAziz, W., AbdelSalam, M., ElTantawi, M M., ElRefae, I., (2015) Factors affecting student participation in extra-curricular activities: a comparison between two Middle Eastern dental schools Saudi Dental Journal 28(1), 36–43 Bakoban, R A and Aljarallah, S A (2015) Extracurricular activities and their effect on the student’s grade point average: Statistical study Educational Research and Reviews, 10(20), 2737-2744 Bartkus, K R., Nemelka, B., Nemelka, M., Gardner, P (2012) Clarifying The Meaning Of Extracurricular Activity: A Literature Review Of Definitions American Journal of Business Education (AJBE), 5(6), 693-704 Braden, T (2017) Effects of Extracurricular Activities and Physical Activity on Academic Success The BYU Undergraduate Journal in Psychology, 12(2), 158-159 Correa, M., Dumas, B K., Jones, C., Mbarika, V., Ong'oa, I M., (2015) Extracurricular Activities and Academic Achievement: A Literature Review Global Advanced Research Journal of Educational Research and Review, 4(9), 165-169 Green, A., (2009) Barriers and facilitating factors to high school students' school engagement (Doctoral dissertation) University of South Florida, Tampa, United States 37 Hawkins, A L (2010) Relationship Between Undergraduate Student Activity and Academic Performance (Master's thesis) Purdue University, West Lafayette, United States Hartnett, R T (1965) Involvement in co-curricular activities as a factor in academic performance Journal of College Student Personnel, 6, 272-274 10 Massoni, E (2012) Positive Effects of Extra Curricular Activities on Students Essai, 9(1), 27 11 Nelson-Addy, L (2017) The impact of extra-curricular activities on student engagement: in what ways does participation in symposium affect higher prior attaining students' engagement in English? (Master's thesis) University of Oxford, Oxford, England 12 Reva, A (2012) The Role of Extracurricular Activities in Foreign Language Learning in University Settings (Master's thesis) University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada 13 Salmeen, A., Alkhaldi, N., Alshaber, R., Majrashi, T., (2019) Extracurricular Activities and Student Performance at Jubail University College International Journal of Liberal Arts and Social Science, 7(1), 55-61 14 Siti, F T., Abdullah, A M., Sayed, K S N., (2014) Examining the Effect of Extracurricular Activities on Academic Achievements among the Public University Students in Malaysia Asian Social Science, 10(9), 171-177 38 APPENDIX QUESTIONNAIRE SECTION 1: PERSONAL INFORMATION Gender Giới tính Male/ Nam  Female/ Nữ  Major Chuyên ngành      Translation anh Interpretation / Biên phiên dịch Office Administration / Hành văn phịng Pedagogy of English / Sư phạm English for Commerce / Tiếng anh thương mại English – Chinese Bilingual Program / Song ngữ Anh Trung Year at the university Sinh viên năm thứ      Other How much time you spend on extracurricular activities per week?     Thời gian bạn dành cho hoạt động ngoại khóa tuần Less than hours / Ít 5-10 hours / Từ đến 10 10-15 hours / Từ 10 đến 15 More than 15 hours / Hơn 15 In capacity as (Multiple answers are accepted)     Bạn tham gia hoạt động ngoại khóa với vai trị (Có thể chọn nhiều đáp án) Organizer / Người tổ chức Leader / Thủ lĩnh Participant / Người tham gia Observer / Người xem cổ vũ 39 Which group is your GPA in?       Điểm trung bình tích lũy bạn xếp loại Excellent (9-10) / Xuất sắc Good (8-9) / Giỏi Fairly good (7-8) / Khá Fair (6-7) / Trung bình Almost fair (5-6) / Trung bình Fail (0-4) / Yếu How often you skip class due to extracurricular activity participation?      Bạn có thường nghỉ học tham gia hoạt động ngoại khóa khơng? Never / Khơng Rarely / Hiếm Sometimes / Thình thoảng Often / Thường xuyên Always / Luôn Your email address / Địa email: SECTION 2: SURVEY Pick an answer from “Strongly agree” to “Strongly disagree” for each statement / Chọn câu trả lời từ "Hoàn toàn đồng ý" đến "Hồn tồn khơng đồng ý" cho câu phát biểu Strongly agree Agree                Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree EAs enhance my sense of belonging Tôi cảm thấy thuộc HUFLIT tham gia hoạt động ngoại khóa (HĐNK) EAs enhance my confidence in public HĐNK cải thiện tự tin trước đám đông EAs enhance my active listening during discussion in classroom HĐNK khiến tơi lắng nghe tích cực thảo luận lớp 40 Strongly agree EAs enhance my teamwork skills HĐNK cải thiện kỹ làm việc nhóm tơi EAs enhance my leadership skills HĐNK cải thiện kỹ lãnh đạo EAs enhance my responsibility for homework Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree                                    HĐNK khiến tơi có trách nhiệm làm tập nhà EAs enhance my responsibility for self-study HĐNK khiến tơi có trách nhiệm việc tự học EAs enhance my enthusiasm for learning HĐNK cho thêm động lực học tập EAs are useful for language acquisition HĐNK hữu ích cho việc tiếp thu ngôn ngữ 10 EAs equip me with more background information I can apply within classroom HĐNK cung cấp kiến thức tảng mà tơi áp dụng lớp học 41