The Influence of Co-Curricular Activities on Students’ Performance in Economics

Abstract

In the 21st century, the pure academic type of education students are introduced to is gradually giving way to the type of education that seek to incorporate the three taxonomies of education; cognitive, psychomotor and affective. Co-curricular activities have been linked to intellectual, emotional, social and moral development of the child. It is based on this that this study sought to establish a functional relationship between students’ involvement in co-curricular activities and their performance in economics. The study employed the causal comparative design and used a total of 920 economics students from the Ashanti region of Ghana. Two instruments were used for the study; a Test of Economics Understanding (TEU) and a questionnaire. The results of the logistic regression indicated that involvement in co-curricular activities impacts positively on students’ performance. It is recommended that school authorities identify specific co-curricular activities and assign teachers as co-ordinators so that some level of seriousness would be attached to such activities by the students.