INTRODUCTION

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ChooseTop of pageAbstractINTRODUCTION <<METHODSRESULTSDISCUSSIONREFERENCESCITING ARTICLES

Extracurricular activities play an important role in the lives of students and have been evaluated at all phases of the educational path. Extracurricular activities have been shown to impact academic performance, emotional and social development, and stress management and can influence a student's choice of career path.

There may be many positive effects of extracurricular engagement on the academic, social, and emotional development of students. When evaluated at the high school level, participation in extracurricular activities in the tenth grade was positively correlated with math achievement test scores, grades, and predicted educational status at the twelfth grade and 2 years post high school.¹ Other studies have confirmed that participation in high school extracurricular activities, particularly nonathletic endeavors, was correlated with better social and academic adjustment, including higher grades, greater aspirations, and healthier academic attitudes.² The poorest adjustment was seen in non-participants.² At the undergraduate level, students who engaged in extracurricular activities enjoyed increased retention and graduation rates, increased grade point average (GPA), and higher rates of good-standing status.³ Students who were members and officers in student organizations had significantly higher academic performance measured by GPA than that of the general student body.⁴ Critical thinking is also improved in undergraduates involved in student clubs and organizations.⁵

Some studies, however, have indicated that extracurricular involvement may have no correlation to academic performance⁶ or may have negative consequences for education in some situations. High school students with a high variety and high level of extracurricular involvement may actually experience a decline in academic adjustment, with math achievement declining at five or more activities, scores for educational expectations and status declining at greater than seven activities, and students with more than nine activities actually having lower math achievement scores than students with no extracurricular participation.¹ This curvilinear relationship was confirmed in eleventh graders with even more restrictive numbers in that two activity areas yielded the highest GPA, but a reduction in GPA was seen with three and four activities.⁷ At the undergraduate level, concerns have been noted that the time commitment for participation in student clubs may interfere with academics,⁸ and a weak negative correlation has been shown between the number of organizational memberships and an individual's GPA.⁴ Twenty-two percent of students in an undergraduate program in physiotherapy cited the interference of extracurricular and social activities as a hindrance to learning.⁹ While students without extracurricular activities achieved lower occupational status than those with activities, the nature of the experience was a significant factor.¹⁰ Students classified as leaders and citizens, who had leadership roles in extracurricular activities, achieved the highest outcomes; sports-related engagement had average outcomes; while those students classified as activists (long-term involvement) and clients (passive involvement) of extracurricular activities showed the poorest occupational outcomes.¹⁰

Beyond academic measures, there may be a social and emotional benefit of extracurricular involvement for students. In one study of undergraduates, extracurricular involvement was a predictor of low levels of burnout and negatively correlated with emotional exhaustion.⁶ Interestingly, in students surveyed, subjective workload, where subjects gauged their own ability to handle more academic or extracurricular activities, was more closely related to burnout than was objective workload, which included credit hours and hours spent in extracurricular activities and work.⁶ Extracurricular activity was positively correlated with a sense of personal accomplishment, particularly in men.⁶ The authors concluded that it may seem logical to advise students to lighten their load by decreasing extracurricular activity, but because of the importance of emotional support in the prevention of burnout, this may not be the best course of action. Rather, supplementing academics with meaningful extracurricular activity may be the best advice.⁶ These studies provide evidence that extracurricular activity can play a positive role in the development of students, but indicate that time management and prioritization of focus are important issues to be considered in high school and undergraduate students.

Students in upper-level undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs cite a variety of reasons for involvement in extracurricular activities. Students in upper-level engineering courses cited building a resume, providing balance, relieving stress, giving back and volunteerism, intrinsic interest, maintaining high school involvement, meeting people, personal development, and a respite from school work as motivation for involvement in extracurricular activities.¹¹ More than 90% of students felt that extracurricular involvement helped more with the development of their communication skills than did curricular activities.¹¹ Looking at learning outcomes of the engineering program, such as application of knowledge and ability to design a system or process, students felt that the curriculum promoted these outcomes more than extracurricular activities did, but extracurricular involvement was cited as one of many contributors to the recognition of the need for life-long learning.¹¹ A survey of senior psychology students found that there came, with extracurricular involvement, increased satisfaction with the quality of instruction, faculty interaction, and overall experience during their education.¹² Dental students selecting the characteristics of a positive academic environment cited faculty encouragement of students to engage in extracurricular, volunteer, cultural, and athletic activities.¹³

The rigorous programs of study for professional students demand additional consideration of the potential benefits and risks of extracurricular involvement. The admissions process for veterinary and other professional degree programs certainly encourages a mindset of extracurricular engagement. Fourteen of 28 colleges of veterinary medicine in the United States specifically cite extracurricular involvement as a factor in their admission requirements.¹⁴ The committee for admissions at Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences developed a subjective admissions process based on five attributes, three of which specifically list extracurricular activities as a potential measure. These attributes included orientation toward service, leadership qualities, and good social skills.¹⁵ Of characteristics most commonly measured in medical school applications processes, 56% look for evidence of extracurricular activities.¹⁶ Once admitted, some schools of pharmacy automatically enroll students into pharmacy student organizations, adding the membership fees to tuition fees,¹⁷ while the American Council on Pharmaceutical Education accreditation standards state that faculty should actively encourage student involvement in professional organizations and that there should be organized efforts to broaden the horizons of students, including through extracurricular activities.¹⁸

While professions benefit from students' participation in extracurricular activities through the creation of a more well-rounded and skilled individual, extracurricular activities may also be a tool for recruitment of students into certain specialties or underserved areas. In medical students in Japan, extracurricular activity was cited as a factor in their choice of specialty.¹⁹ A survey by the Ontario Association of Swine Practitioners found that extracurricular exposure to swine during veterinary school was very important on the path to becoming a swine veterinarian, with swine veterinarians 3.22 times more likely to have had extracurricular contact with pigs than non-swine veterinarians during veterinary school, regardless of experience with pigs before veterinary school.²⁰

The goals of this project were to determine the number of extracurricular opportunities available to veterinary students, gauge administrative policies regarding level of involvement relative to academic performance, determine the effect of the level of extracurricular activity involvement on academic performance, and determine the motivation for extracurricular involvement among veterinary students. The overarching objective was to generate data to assist in the development of recommendations that could be provided to students at the start of veterinary school regarding extracurricular involvement and to guide student advisement throughout the curriculum. Our primary hypothesis was that there is a level of extracurricular activity beyond which students' academic performance will diminish.

DISCUSSION

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ChooseTop of pageAbstractINTRODUCTIONMETHODSRESULTSDISCUSSION <<REFERENCESCITING ARTICLES

Veterinary students at the time of this survey had the opportunity to establish membership with 20 college-recognized student organizations at KSU-CVM and 29 organizations at TAMU-CVM. Students at each school also served as class officers, student ambassadors, and committee members related to open houses, ethical behavior, student bookstores, and curriculum. Results from the associate dean survey indicate that veterinary students may have up to 40 student organizations from which to choose at other colleges. The number of potential distractions outside of the veterinary curriculum is high and has been noticed by those in the veterinary industry outside academia. In a letter to veterinary school deans in September 2011, the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) announced the cessation of AAHA student chapters, stating, “We believe students are so busy, and have so many different ‘clubs’ from which to choose, the chapters were being lost in the competition for students' time and attention” (Michael T. Cavanaugh, personal communication, September 12, 2011).

The benefits of extracurricular involvement must be weighed against potential negative consequences related to time management and focus. Undergraduate students have cited that their primary barriers to extracurricular participation in learning activities are related to time and scheduling.²¹ It has been shown that veterinary students experience high levels of stress, with concerns about academic performance, workload, falling behind in studies, and the amount of time spent studying being four of the top five stressors.²² Time management has been cited by veterinary students as a high priority skill they would like to acquire.²³ Although the effect of extracurricular activity level on academic performance has not been previously studied in professional students, one study of veterinary students revealed that holding leadership roles was shown to have no influence on academic performance, including annual or cumulative GPA for the first 3 years of the curriculum.²⁴ In adolescents, there is a curvilinear relationship of level of extracurricular involvement and academic adjustment, with declines in math achievement, educational expectations, and status beginning at a level of five activities,¹ and reductions in GPA noted in one study at three and four activities.⁷ Our hypothesis was that students with higher levels of extracurricular involvement would have diminished academic performance due to these issues. However, higher overall GPA values were associated with students involved in two or more activities per week than those involved with one per week, and students involved in five or more organizations had higher Fall-semester GPAs than those involved in three or four organizations. These findings did not support our hypothesis, and there are several possibilities as to why the hypothesis was rejected. These results may reflect increased maturity and time-management skill level in veterinary students relative to the previously studied adolescents. Students may manage their time commitments based on self-recognition of time-management and academic abilities. Students choosing to be involved at higher levels outside the curriculum may recognize their ability to be good time managers while students with academic challenges may self-limit their extracurricular involvement. In one study of sociology majors in a senior capstone experience, GPA did not differ among students with low, medium, or high participation levels, but low-participation students skipped more classes, were less engaged in their discipline, and saw more barriers to participation.²¹ Consistent with this, students who skipped class less had increased involvement in out-of-class learning opportunities.²¹ High levels of extracurricular engagement may itself serve as a promoter of time management, while students participating at low levels may be demonstrating a lack of engagement in all areas of their life, including extracurricular activities and academics. Finally, extracurricular events may benefit students academically through increases in content knowledge, motivation through seeing the clinical application of their classroom instruction, and increasing engagement with faculty.

A significant difference was found between overall GPA by school, with KSU-CVM having a mean of 3.34 and TAMU-CVM having a mean of 3.18 (p<.0100). Confounding factors which could contribute to this difference but cannot be separated in our analysis include survey semester and year, as KSU-CVM students were surveyed in the Fall semester of 2011 while TAMU-CVM students were surveyed in the Spring of 2013. Grade inflation may also occur, as has been noted in higher education since 1960²⁵ and has been demonstrated in veterinary education.²⁶

The responses for primary reason for extracurricular involvement could perhaps be combined into two categories: social (food, social, distraction) and academic or professional (network, gain new skills, and gain skills outside of the curriculum). When these two broad categories are considered, 22.6% of students participate primarily for social reasons, while 77.4% engage for professional and academic purposes. It is perhaps not surprising that the highest percentage of students cite gaining new skills and knowledge outside the classroom as the primary reason for participating in extracurricular activities. This distribution of responses is certainly most consistent with the goals of most extracurricular organizations and shows evidence that students are at least philosophically in agreement with this goal. This finding may parallel findings in college students transitioning to occupations where students classified as leaders and citizens achieved the highest outcomes while those participating at more passive levels showed the poorest occupational outcomes.¹⁰ A potential bias in the distribution of response rates in this survey is that response options were presented to all students without order randomization. This may have resulted in a higher selection rate for the similar response options “to gain new skills/knowledge outside the classroom” over “to learn skills that I perceive are not included in the curriculum” because the former was listed first. The selection “to gain new skills/knowledge outside the classroom” may not be readily identifiable as differing from the choice “to learn skills that I perceive are not included in the curriculum.” These answers are considered different by the authors because one indicates that the student has a strong desire to learn, while the latter indicates that the student believes that the curriculum is inadequate to meet his or her needs. It is interesting to note that the percentage of students with this curricular concern increases each year at each school as students move through the curriculum.

This study did not evaluate the social or emotional benefits of extracurricular involvement of veterinary students, but “to enhance the social aspect of my life” was consistently cited as the least important reason for extracurricular involvement. Students do, however, participate in intramural sports at a high rate. Over one third of students were involved in intramural sports, with the exception of TAMU-CVM year-3 students. Intramural sport participation was not found to be significantly associated with GPA, but may be considered by students to be an important contributor to their physical and mental health, and there is a lack of evidence to support wholesale discouragement of this activity.

A potential bias of the study is that participation in the study exhibits engagement on the part of the students. Therefore, participating students may be those that are more engaged in general. Participation in the survey was very high overall (89.0%) and ranged from 74.1% to 98.5% across classes, making us confident that we were able to develop a model representative of the population of students at these institutions. From a GPA and extracurricular standpoint, a wide range of students were represented in responses. The GPA range among respondents was 1.28–4.00, and the number of memberships held ranged from none (14/665, 2.1%) to nine or more (11/665, 1.6%).

A review of the Accreditation Policies and Procedures of the American Veterinary Medical Association Council of Education revealed no requirement for schools to provide extracurricular activities to students.²⁷ However, well-designed extracurricular activities likely contribute to stated goals of graduates having “basic scientific knowledge, skills, and values to provide entry-level health care, independently, at the time of graduation.”^27(p.22) Both KSU-CVM and TAMU-CVM have active outcomes assessment tools that document student participation and skill development in a variety of disciplines. The list of core competencies at TAMU-CVM includes participation in organized veterinary medicine, participation in student organizations, and service as an officer in a student organization.

The overarching goal of this project was to determine the effect of extracurricular activity on student academic performance in order to guide the advising of entering veterinary students on the appropriate level of extracurricular involvement and to guide students encountering academic difficulty. Over half of responding associate deans indicated that they make recommendations regarding the level of involvement in extracurricular activities, and one third limit a student's involvement in leadership roles when that student is in academic difficulty. Undergraduates in need of remediation, however, achieved higher persistence rates when engaged in extracurricular activities.³ Remediated students graduated at a rate of 70.7% when they were involved with extracurricular activities, whereas non-participants had a graduation rate of 35.4%.³ The data from our survey similarly do not support a negative correlation between GPA and extracurricular activity level and, as such, may not support recommendations that students reduce their activity load in times of academic struggle. It is important, however, to recognize that these data represent a population, not a single student, and academic advising should be based on the situation of the individual. A role of the faculty advisors of student organizations may be to monitor the planning of activities and the workload of the officer team to serve as a first line of defense against students becoming overwhelmed. Faculty and administrators should avoid recommendations that result in isolation of the student, and recommendations for students in academic difficulty may include continued, well-planned involvement in activities, with a focus on time-management and study skills. This study does demonstrate that there is value in being engaged at some level in extracurricular pursuits, and students should be encouraged to strive for a balance between curricular and extracurricular activities.