Fall

2020

“The Impacts of
Extracurricular Activity
Clubs on Academic
Performance of
Students”
DR. DEENA P. FORKAN
BY: ARFA ANAN
ID: 1813177630
COURSE: ENG105
SEC: 25
Acknowledgement
First, I would like to honor my creator for being able to
complete my journey successfully. Expressing my gratitude
towards to my course instructor Dr. Deena P. Forkan for
instructing me throughout this semester and helping me for
completing my research paper, for her continuous patience and
motivation. I cannot imagine having a better advisor and
mentor for this course than her.
Beside my course instructor, I thank my younger sister, Naira
Anan for putting her heart and soul to help me preparing this
paper.
I would like to thank my other friends specially Mahbub Alam
Shawon who stood beside me throughout the whole semester
and tutored me whenever needed. Also, my fellow mates in
NSU who have helped and supported me in acquiring and
assembling relevant data on this topic in preparing my research
paper.
Last but not the least, I’m thankful to all my other family
members who supported me through thick and thin. I’m
thankful especially to my mom and dad who supported me
emotionally and mentally throughout my life, provided me with
everything I needed to complete this research paper.

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Abstract
Extracurricular activities are simply a part of the education
system of modern times. It offers them a meaningful
opportunities to design characters and teaches ways of
cultivating discipline, determination, perseverance, and control
over oneself. This paper was held for vivid understanding of the
impacts of extracurricular activity clubs on academic
performance of the students. The primary objective of this
research paper is to find out its effect on academic studies for
joining the clubs by university students. Even though clubs are
important in academic life for every student, my hypothesis
says that this research paper would be able to discuss the
negative impacts of the university social clubs on the academic
grades of the students resulting in lowering the quality and
quantity of their studies. Therefore, my aim is to figure out the
validity of my argument and hypothesis in this paper.

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 Table of Contents
1
Acknowledgement
2
Abstract
4-5
Introduction
6
Background
7-8
Research Area
9
Hypothesis
10
Methodology
11
Tabulation
12-22
Data Presentation and Graph Analysis
22
Findings
23
Conclusion
24
Limitations
25
References

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Introduction
For those students who fail academically, both within and
outside the classroom, the best path to success is a challenge
for higher education practitioners to learn how to handle (ACT,
Inc., 2012). In order to gain book knowledge and obtain a
respectable academic score, all students concentrate on
academic studies. In contrast, several clubs are developed in
various institutions in addition to the academic studies, so that
many students can pursue extracurricular activities, and many
join these clubs to obtain constructive and professional
experience alongside bookish knowledge. These extracurricular
activities include planning events, engaging in competitions,
case studies and many more to develop and enhance skills
other than academic studies in students. These also diversify
experience that helps a student in his/her future career.
Apart from academic studies, many students are now exploring
their co-curricular activities by entering different university
clubs. According to my survey, most of the students join these
recreational clubs at sophomore year. Joining the club helps
students in various fields, and lateral thinking, rational
reasoning, case solving, communication, leadership, social
skills, emotional and personality enhancement, and etcetera
are some of the remarkable development (Sarkar, 2020).
Many students, however, only give academic studies more
importance. They think joining clubs take additional time which

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might hamper their academic performance and they think to
obtain excellent results, the time can be given to academic
studies. Many learners conclude that certain people attend the
club for fun, which is not so beneficial in acquiring real-life
experience (Tj, 2017). Some students are unwilling to join clubs
at university or participate in any of these club activities
because they lack the ability to balance both at the same time.
In my opinion, if a student wants to join a club at his/her
university then first he/she needs to balance between the club
activities and academic activities at right mindset. If the job can
be structured according to a right mindset and timetable, then
the experience can be obtained by focusing on the academic
course and enjoying the club as well (Dutta, 2016). But it’s
easier said than done.

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Background
In our context of our topic, different social clubs are now
popular center of recreations and plays a major part in
extracurricular activities that has been a part and parcel of the
modern academic curriculum in almost every university and
seen in colleges as well. These clubs are very much common in
almost all universities and are operated by student bodies at
universities or college institutions where the membership is
owned only by the students and alumni. Students usually join
different clubs at their university sophomore year and they
tend to participate actively in these club activities. This
undoubtedly has a positive effect on their improvement of skills
and communication but it also has a negative impact on their
academic studies. A considerable amount of research has been
dedicated to the study of the relationship between the
engagement of students in activities and the academic
performance of students.
In Bangladesh context, more students are now getting
themselves involved in this type of social clubs as a mode of
recreation in addition to their student life. Therefore, this
research will present the impacts of these extracurricular club
activities on students’ life in their academic performance,
eventually their grades. The data analysis in real life will show if
my hypothesis matches the scenario.

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Research Area
In my research paper, I had this aim and objective to find out
what are the impacts mostly negative impacts of joining clubs
in students’ academic performance and studies.
My research paper's overall review indicates that the
information I gathered actually correlates to my hypothesis that
clubbing impacts mostly in a negative way in students’ studies.
The research was conducted on University students. For data
collected I prepared a questionnaire and surveyed more than
30 students inside and outside of NSU in order to take their
opinions and experiences related to my topic of this paper. I
have assembled all the data retrieved from questionnaire
survey and made a summary that might support my hypothesis
as well as assumption about the topic. The questions made for
my research paper are given below:
1. Why do you think clubs are formed in Universities?
2. Are you affiliated with any club at your university?
3. If you are a club member, in which semester did you join
the club?
4. Which club at your university you think is most
prominent?
5. Do you think clubs are helpful?
6. Which is the most effective for improving communication
skills?
7. Do you think working in clubs result in lowering grades?

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 8. Can you balance between academic and club activities?
9. Does working for club harm your studies?
10. How much time do you spend for doing club activities
during working days?
11. Do you recommend others to join clubs who haven't
yet?

The questionnaire was prepared to assemble all the

relevant data I needed to prepare my research paper and
prove my hypothesis and also for the easy understanding
of the students to fill out the survey questionnaire.

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Hypothesis
Club activities are time consuming and it is found from
evidence that the students who are affiliated with clubs at their
universities have comparatively low cgpa than the students
who aren’t. From my personal experience I have seen my
friends at NSU who are club members they spend most of their
time at club rooms other than classrooms. They are assigned to
different club activities and thus hardly can concentrate on
their studies and hardly get time to study. On the opposite, the
majority of those who are not associated with any club
comparatively earn a respectable score. They can concentrate
and spend a lot on academic courses, attend exams & classes
on time, I believe.

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Methodology
For preparing this research paper for eng105 course I have
collected both primary and secondary data. Due to the current
pandemic situation for covid-19 I was unable to survey students
physically in campus areas. However, for the primary data
collection, I have crafted an online survey questionnaire that
consisted of a number of questions related to real life scenario
regarding the purpose of research study. On the Facebook app,
I posted my survey form and forwarded it to my peers and
friends and took their view. Primary sources of data for this
paper were collected from the respondents who filled out the
questions. The sample size of respondents of my survey were
31 students both from inside and outside of NSU.
For Secondary data, I have reviewed various online websites,
newspaper and other published articles, blogs, online journals
and I have assembled these data into various locations in my
paper to enrich the ideas. In addition to find these sources, I
used Google's search engine.

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Tabulation
As mentioned before, I prepared survey questionnaire in
relevant aspects to the topic for students and got a total of 31
responses. The collected data from the survey report assisted
me in verifying of my hypothesis and drawing a conclusion to
my research topic. The data collected it shown in a table below:
Number Options
of
questions A B C D
03 50% 25% 10.7% 14.3%
04 79.3% 20.7% N/A N/A
06 50% 20% 6.7% 23.3%
07 64.3% 3.6% 32.1% N/A
08 34.5% 17.2% 31% 17.2%
09 46.6% 23.3% 6.7% 23.3%
10 33.3% 46.7% 20% N/A
11 16.7% 36.7% 30% 16.7%
12 33.3% 16.7% 30% 20%
13 32.2% 22.6% 12.9% 32.7%

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Data Presentation and Graph Analysis
1. Why do you think clubs are formed in Universities?*
14.3

10.7

50

25

For increasing communication skill

For developing leadership qualitites For delevoping character
For developing academic performance

In answer to this question, 50% of the students think clubs in

the universities are formed for increasing the communication
skill. The number of students who think clubs are formed for
developing leadership quality are 25%. Again. 10.7% of the total
respondents think that clubs are formed for developing
character and the other 14.3% of total students think clubs are
formed for developing academic performance.
Therefore, in this section, half of the total respondent that is
50% are in favor of option 1 that is clubs are important for
increasing communication skills.

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 2. Are you affiliated with any club at your university?*

21%

79%

yes no

In answer to this question, an estimation of 79% of the total

respondents who filled out the survey are associated with
different clubs at their respective institutions. The other 21% of
the respondents are not associated with any club or club
activities.
This proves that most of the students are affiliated with club
and takes club activities as their part of extracurricular activity
and a center for recreation.

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 3. If you are a club member, in which semester did you join
the club?*
Semester
Series 1 Series 2 Series 3 Series 4
12

10

0
1st sem 2nd sem 3rd sem 4th sem 5th sem Not a member

The chart above shows the number of students joining the

clubs at different semesters and few of them who has either no
longer a member of club or never joined a club.
We can see most of the students has joined clubs in their
sophomore year or freshman year. The slide goes the highest in
first to third semester. After 3rd semester, the slide goes straight
downwards. Then there are students who were never
associated with these social and recreational clubs and few who
has dropped out.

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 4. Which club at your university you think is most
prominent?*

23%

50%
7%

20%

YES SSC YEF Others

The question was asked to understand the views of the

students towards the different clubs and which club is the most
prominent among all other clubs.
According to the response, half of the respondents that is 50%
of them think Young Entrepreneur Society club as the most
prominent, 20% of them are in favor of Social Service club, 7%
for Young Economist Forum and 23% support others. Majority
of students think YES as the prominent club among all other
clubs in terms of their performance and history.

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 5. Do you think clubs are helpful?*

32%

64%
4%

yes no maybe

About 64% of the total respondents agreed that clubs are

helpful in terms of academic and future career, only a 4%
students think they are not much useful in life. And the rest
32% are neutral and unsure about the benefits of joining clubs.

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 6. Which one is the most effective for improving
communication skills?*

17%

35%

31%

17%

taking part in extracurricular activities Reinforcing active learning

Participating in fieldworks Offering group presentations and assignments

My survey has a question to be filled out by the students

to choose the most effective activity that improves
communication skills in their opinions. In answer to this
question, 35% of the respondents chose taking part in
extracurricular activities, 17% selected reinforcing active
learning, and 31% selected participating in fieldworks and
finally the rest 17% choses offering group presentations
and assignments.
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 7. Do you think working in clubs result in lowering grades?*

Definitely because clubbing takes a lot

of time

Yes because it is hard to balance

Neutral

No it doesn’t affect grades

Yes because it is hard to balance No it doesn’t affect grades

Neutral Definitely because clubbing takes a lot of time

Students were asked if they think working in these clubs result

in lowering grades. This pie chart basically shows the opinions
of students in favor or against this question. 33.20% of the
students responded to the first option. They think that yes
working in clubs result in lowering grades because it is hard to
balance between the academic and club performances. 23.3%
of them thinks it doesn’t affect grades, another 23.3% are
neutral to this topic, not in favor or against. Finally, the rest
6.70% of the responded strongly agrees in favor to the question
because they think clubbing takes up a lot of time and so
seemingly they cannot concentrate much on studies resulting in
lower cgpa at the end of the semester.

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 8. Can you balance between academic and club activities?*

5%

20% 31%

44%

Yes clubbing doesn’t affect my studies No it is pretty difficult to balance

I'm not sure That's why didn't join clubs

This pie chart explains the reasons why it is difficult to retain a

good grade while attending a club, and the respondents in the
survey asked if they could balance between club and academic
activities. Overall the responds to ‘No it is pretty difficult to
balance’ was overwhelming which provides evidence to my
hypothesis.
About 30.8% responds positive that clubbing doesn’t affect
their studies and academic performances. 44.2% says it is
difficult to balance between academic and club activities. 20%
says they are not sure about the topic and the rest 5% says that
they did not join the club knowing they can’t maintain balance
between these two in the right mindset.

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 9. Does working for club harm your studies?*

No fixed time for most

activities
9%
Pressure from seniors
15% Yes because it diverts Yes because it diverts concentration
concentration from from studies
studies No it doesn't affect studies
46%
Pressure from seniors
No it doesn't affect No fixed time for most activities
studies
30%

The pie chart presents the data whether working for clubs harm
studies or not.
About 46% of the students responded positively because they
think it diverts concentration from studies. 30% of them
disagrees with the topic and says it doesn’t affect their studies.
15% says they often face pressures from seniors in clubs and
other 9% says there is no fixed timetable for most club activities
which indirectly affects or harms their studies.
So this is proven from the survey that most students agree to
this fact that working for clubs may harm academic
performances.

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 How much time do you spend for doing club activities
during working days?*

21%

39%

1/2 hours
2/3 hours
More

39%

Question were asked how much do individuals spend their time

in clubs during work days. The pie chart here shows the number
of hours respondent spends for working in clubs in their normal
scheduled day. 39% of the total respondents says they spend
1/2 hours in a day in doing club events, another 39% of sample
says they spend 2to3 hours and the rest 21.4% spends more
hours of a day in clubs.
Students spend a lot of their time in clubs that hampers their
class times. Some of them can’t concentrate on studies even
after going home because they often stays tired.

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 Do you recommend others to join clubs who haven't yet?*
In answer to this question, 60% of the respondents says they
would because it helps in building future career and other
40% wouldn’t because they think at this time focus and
concentration should be given on academic studies only.

Findings
Because of the validity of my claim and perhaps even the
assumption, my hypothesis has been proven. The hypothesis
I made was that the academic performance of the students
who are associated in club activities are less focused in
academic performances. Opinions were taken from those in
the club and out of the club in similar proportions to verify
the argument. Most respondents shared opinion that club
practices had a negative impact on studies, which is
understood by the data analysis done through questionnaire.
The result of my survey had a majority number of
respondents who thinks balancing between club and
academic activities are not that easy and majority agreed
that those who are in clubs have lower cgpa than those who
aren’t on an average.
Hence, the hypothesis that I claimed was proven and verified
by the combination of my argument and collected data.

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 Conclusion
Choosing something according to their own preferences and
desires is advisable for all. It is unacceptable to make laws
that everybody must take part in club activities. Only those
who, according to their ability, can pursue their academic
studies smoothly and work on club activities are qualified to
enroll. It is also unfair to believe that a beautiful career life
can be based on just high academic performance. This is
because internal growth takes place by getting to know the
outside world, which can be accomplished by engaging in
club activities. In various fields, which are not only learned in
academic research, expertise, experience and innovation are
adequately required at present (Sarwar, 2016).
I would suggest spending more time mostly on academic
studies to those who don't get good grades. However, who
can balance in a right mindset should spend time in
extracurricular activities but much emphasis should be given
so that it doesn’t hampers studies. Hence, the hypothesis
that I claimed was proven and verified by the combination of
my argument and collected data.

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 Limitations
In this research, there are certain restrictions and
weaknesses. Due to the prevailing covid-19 situation, mostly
the fieldwork was done by providing survey questionnaire to
the students via online platforms. The size of the sample of
the study was also few around 30 students as most of us are
too busy to spare some time or unwilling to fill out survey
forms online. The survey was filled out by students inside
and outside of NSU and students within Dhaka city. I was
unable to survey students outside the city due to time
shortage.

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 References
Dutta, S. (2016, March 29). Time management: Balancing academics,
social Life, and extracurricular activities [Weblog post]. WES.
Retrieved from
https://www.wes.org/advisor-blog/time-management-balancing-
activities/
Sarkar, D. (2020, March 27). Importance of co-curricular activities for
students [Web log post]. iDC. Retrieved from
https://idreamcareer.com/blog/importance-of-co-curricular-
activities-for-students/
Sarwar, A. (2016, August 31). Does CGPA matter in getting a job? The
Daily Star. Retrieved from https://www.thedailystar.net/op-
ed/politics/does-cgpa-matter-getting-job-1274815
Tj, N. (2017, October 14). 3 Common excuses for not joining clubs
and why they’re only holding you back. The Script. Retrieved from
https://foothillscript.com/1343/foothill-life/3-common-excuses-for-
not-joining-clubs-and-why-theyre-only-holding-you-back/
Tu, Z. (2016, October 13). Should schools make extracurricular
activities mandatory or optional? Medium. Retrieved from
https://medium.com/@lulushuai/should-schools-make-
extracurricular-activities-mandatory-or-optional-3bfaf0d44a39

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