The investigation of the effects of participation in extracurricular activities on preschool children school engagement in Taiwan context

In Taiwan, in addition to daily academic learning, many children from a very young age (3 or 4 years old) have already participated in one or more extracurricular activities outside of school time or during the weekend. There has been little study of whether these extracurricular activities have any relation to children's school engagement at such a young age. The current study focuses on Taiwan kindergarten children's (5-6 years old) school engagement comparing children with and without previous participation in extracurricular activities. The goal of the present study is to examine levels of school engagement in young children who do and do not participate in extracurricular activities. In addition to examining the relations between participation in extracurricular activities, parent beliefs, and school engagement of young children, effects of "duration" (the length of participation) and "breadth" (the numbers and types of activity) of extracurricular activities on children's school engagement are also examined. The results indicated that the relations of the breadth and the length of activity participation to school engagement were non-significant. Only significant gender differences in overall engagement and the behavioral engagement subscale emerged. There were associations between school engagement levels and certain types of activity such as music and performance art. Some positive relationships between certain way of parental support such as praise and rewards and sport, academic and music activity were also found in the study.