An investigation into whether or not there is a link between children’s level of participation in external activities outside of school and their level of participation in extra-curricular activities

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine the correlation between children’s participation in extra-curricular activity and their participation in external activities.  The subjects are primary school pupils from 6 primary schools in Northern Ireland. Each school ranged in size, location and backgrounds. The subjects are in primary seven and aged 130.6 + 3.0 months which is equivalent to 10.9 years. There were 165 subjects who took part, 83 females and 82 males. In order to obtain information about the children’s level of participation in extra-curricular and external activities each child was asked to fill in individual questionnaires. In these the children recorded the days of the week that they took part in an extra-curricular activity and also what the activity was. Similarly, for levels of participation in external activities the children recorded what days of the week they participated in an activity and also what the activity was. It has been suggested in a number of studies that there is a correlation between participation in extra-curricular activity and external activities for children in Key Stage 2. However the Spearman Rank Test was used as an independent statistical analysis and it suggested that there is a weak correlation between a child’s level of participation in extra-curricular activity and external activities.