Student Voluntary Participation and High School Size

AbstractThe amount of participation by seniors in the voluntary, extracurricular activities of their high schools in relation to size of the high school was studied using a new and more objective method of measuring participation. Involvement by 10,412 seniors in 27 public high schools in central New York state was measured through tabulation of names printed near photographs of activity groups published in school yearbooks. The schools ranged in size from 21 to 622 students in the senior class. School size was significantly related to mean number of participations (r = .69), and to percentage of students who participated in none of the school activities (r = .77). The results are congruent with Barker's theory of behavior settings and support the findings of earlier research that relied upon student self-report as the measure of participation.