The Relationship Between Extracurricular Activity Involvement and Elementary Student Performance

This secondary research study uses secondary data to evaluate families' social economic statuses (SES) and parents' investment in extracurricular activities (ECA) and of their children's abilities in reading, science and technology skills. Based on previous trends and possibilities, this study discussed whether children of the same SES tend to maintain similar levels of learning outcomes, while ECA investment can be a significant factor that influences differences among children of different SES levels. Data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Program named Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (ECLS-K: 2011), which was sponsored by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) within the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education, were the main source used in this study. ECLS-K: 2011 is the third in a series of longitudinal studies of young children. Including the assessment of child development, early learning, and school progress, approximately 18,170 kindergartners from about 1,310 schools, their parents, their teachers and before- and after-school care providers participated in the program. This study focuses on information from the data collection conducted in the spring of 2016, when the majority of the ECLS-K: 2011 students were in fifth grade and their 2010-2011 kindergarten school year. Results indicated that even at the same level of SES, investment of ECA can be different and, thus, causing the differences in the study outcome. The early childhood ECA investment was study performance included reading, math and science score in the fifth grade. However, gender differences were not significant shown in this program. Further analyses indicated that the gap between early childhood ECA investments would be narrowed by investing in ECA, even at the same SES. It is concluded that ethnicity, household members and parents' highest level of education make differences in how parents invest in the ECA in early childhood education.