On extracurricular activities and their impacts on personal life of undergraduates a study of students from national economics university, vietnam

LIST OF FIGURESFigure 2.1: The percentage of ECAs participation among students...17 Figure 2.2: The importance of participating in ECAs...18 Figure 2.3: Level of importance of each type

NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS ENGLISH

HÀ NỘI, 2022

Secondly, the authors would like to express deep gratitude to friends andrespondents for spending valuable time participating in filling in the online surveydespite their busy schedules They did help a lot to gather different information, collectdata and provide the authors with different ideas in making this research unique.

Last but not least, the authors would like to thank fellow group members for thestimulating discussions, for sleepless nights working together before deadlines, and forall the fun as well as precious experiences during the last three months

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

1 ECAs: Extracurricular activities

2 NEU: National Economics University

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 2

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 3

LIST OF FIGURES 6

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

INTRODUCTION 7

1 Background 7

2 Purpose 7

3 Research questions 8

4 Scope of research 8

5 Research methodology 8

6 Research structure 9

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 10

1.1 Review of concept 10

1.1.1 The concept of ECAs 10

1.1.2 The concept of students’ personal life 10

1.2.3 The involvement theory 11

1.3 Review of previous relevant studies 12

1.3.1 Development of ECAs - Students’ preferences in ECAs 12

1.3.2 Reasons for an increase in the number of students attending ECAs 13

1.3.3 The impacts of ECAs on students’ academic and personal development 14 1.4 Summary 15

CHAPTER 2: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 17

2.1 The reasons for students’ participating in ECAs 17

2.1.1 The proportion of students participating in ECAs 17

2.1.2 The reasons for students’ participation in ECAs 20

2.1.3 The degree of satisfaction of students when participating in ECAs 21

2.2 The impacts of ECAs on students’ personal life 22

2.2.1 Students’ benefits of engaging in ECAs 22

2.2.2 Challenges faced by students in engaging in ECAs 24

2.3 Methods students are using to participate in ECAs effectively 27

2.3.1 The frequency of participating in ECAs 28

2.3.2 Effective methods to manage time for ECAs 29

2.3.3 Attention paid to ECAs by Vietnamese students 30

2.4 Conclusion 31

CHAPTER 3: RECOMMENDATIONS 33

3.1 For students who are participating in ECAs 33

3.2 For students who do not participating in ECAs 35

CONCLUSION 37

1 Limitations 37

2 Recommendations for further studies 37

REFERENCES 38

APPENDIX 40

Questionnaire 40

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1: The percentage of ECAs participation among students 17

Figure 2.2: The importance of participating in ECAs 18

Figure 2.3: Level of importance of each type of ECAs 18

Figure 2.4: Reasons for participating in ECAs 20

Figure 2.5: Degree of satisfaction when participating in ECAs 21

Figure 2.6: Students’ benefits of engaging in ECAs 23

Figure 2.7: Challenges faced by students in participating in ECAs 24

Figure 2.7.1: Challenges faced by students in participating in ECAs 25

Figure 2.7.2: Challenges faced by students in participating in ECAs 26

Figure 2.7.3: Challenges faced by students in participating in ECAs 27

Figure 2.8: The frequency of engaging in ECAs among students 28

Figure 2.9: Effective methods to manage time for ECAs 29

Figure 2.10: Attention paid to ECAs by Vietnamese students 31

1 Background

Previously in the 2000s, Vietnamese students tended to focus on their studyingpath and spent most of their free time or vacations on resting Concurrently, just a veryfew ECAs were being offered in schools, colleges and universities and the mainactivity was only volunteer one In that period of time, few students were activeparticipants of societies inside and outside their academic environment

However, a significant increase in students’ participation has been witnessedrecently, with a vast variety of ECAs, ranging from academic to entertaining ones.From 2010, taking part in ECAs has been extremely prevalent among theundergraduates, especially in the active university like NEU In this school, there areabout 50 clubs with different purposes which have been attracting a very huge number

of students participating

As researchers, we are completely curious about the reasons why there is anincrease in students participating in ECAs, instead of just focusing on studying as inthe past This is also an interesting study to know how ECAs affect students’ personallife when they choose to engage in them More importantly, ECAs are currentlybecoming a significant factor to have a stable career and to be a global citizen Variouscompanies are now setting an advanced and high standard to take on their fellowemployees, and being active in taking part in the social activities will be superior tostudents in job seeking

We sincerely take this one into consideration, thus, this study would aim tomake a further investigation into participating in ECAs and clarify the impacts of it onour personal performances

2 Purpose

During the past century, there has been ample research pertaining to ECAs,however, those research didn’t center specifically on the impacts on personal life ofundergraduates Therefore, the purpose of the research was to address the relationshipbetween ECAs and their effects on students’ life This study aims to get the insight ofcurrent situation and the popularity of ECAs among undergraduates, acknowledge whystudents involved in and their expectations of ECAs, examine positive and negativeimpacts of ECAs on personal life of students, and discover how students balancebetween ECAs and their personal life

3 Research questions

- Why do students consider engaging in extracurricular activities?

- How do extracurricular activities positively and negatively affect students’ personallife?

- How do students manage their time to participate effectively in both activities ?

4 Scope of research

This research is carried out in National Economics University, Hanoi betweenDecember 2021 and January 2022 to ensure the latest statistics The scope of thisresearch is 102 students in different departments, aged from 18 to 22 responding toonline surveys

5 Research methodology

Statistics of this research were collected through quantitative method using thequestionnaire distribution To obtain the data, online surveys on Google form withmultiple options were randomly responded by a population To be exact, this studyaims to explore students' participation in ECAs and their impacts on the personal life ofthese participants The chosen population is the undergraduate students of NationalEconomics University in Vietnam between December 2021 and January 2022 Toprecisely measure the effect of ECAs, a valid set of elements were included in the datacollecting step

The questionnaires contain 2 sections The first section is designed to gatherbasic information such as field and year while the second section consists of enquiryquestions The questionnaire is assessed by a point Likert Scale, from 1 meaning

"strongly disagree" to 5 meaning "Strongly agree", followed by Yes/No questions,which is the determination of different paths The Yes path leads to multiple tickboxesincluding reasons to participate in ECAs, benefits and drawbacks of these whereas theother one conveys a flexible long answers box All the collected data in thequestionnaire was validated

6 Research structure

Introduction - introduces the study with the background, purpose, researchquestions, scope, research method and the structure of the study

Chapter I: Literature review - includes an examination of models and theoreticalframeworks that have previously been presented to the research field This chaptercontains definitions of main concepts, which are the concept of ECAs and students’personal lives This chapter also reviews the relevant studies of the development ofECAs as well as the students’ preferences in those activities, explains why there aremore and more students taking part in out-of-school activities, and presents the impact

of those activities on students’ academic achievements and personal developments

Chapter II: Findings and Discussion - shows data analysis The chapterdiscusses why students participate in ECAs, identifies the benefits and negative impacts

on students’ personal lives Moreover, this chapter contains an examination of students’time management in order to balance both personal life and ECAs

Chapter III: Recommendations - provides recommendations to help studentsparticipate in ECAs effectively, without being negatively affected in their personal life.Additionally, this chapter also provides recommendations for students who are notparticipating in ECAs currently, to help them acquire better orientation in participating

in ECAs

Conclusion - specifies the limitations of the study and offers somerecommendations for further studies

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

To serve the purpose of our study, this literature review aims to get a better insight into the term ‘extracurricular activities’ and examine the current popularity of

those activities again, as well as types of activities students nowadays go for by latest studies In addition, it also focuses on the impacts of ECAs on students’ personal life including different fields like their mentality, academics, skills… and some possible solutions for students to take part in these ECAs healthily.

1.1 Review of concept

1.1.1 The concept of ECAs

There are an array of ways to define ‘extracurricular activities’ Yadav (2016)suggests that “extracurricular activities are those that fall outside the realm of thenormal curriculum of colleges, performed by students” Extracurricular activities areavailable for all students, of all ages (Yadav, 2016 p.104) However, Yadav (2016)claims that volunteer activities aren't always ECAs and we do not totally agree withthis notion as they are pursuits outside the classroom as well Besides, Donelly and hisco-researchers (2019) assume in their research that ECAs, “together with the associatedterms ‘out-of-school’ activities, ‘super-curricular’ and ‘co-curricular’ activities, arebroad ‘catch-all’ terms, often used to represent a multitude of activities across musical,artistic, sporting, social and academic domains” Both individual activities and team-based activities are taken into account in the definition (Donelly, et al., 2019) Thisdefinition of ECAs seems to fit with our research most because it can cover the generalmeaning and related terms with ‘extracurricular activities’ without leaving out anykinds of activity as the definition from Yadav (2016)

1.1.2 The concept of students’ personal life

Personal life is defined as a course or a state of an individual's life, especiallywhen regarded as the total personal choices contributing to one's personal identity(Baker & Mareen, 2010) To be exact, what a person does in his/her free time is his/herpersonal life May and Nordqvist (2019) pointed out that “ 'personal life' encompasses

a broad range of issues, the following of which are examined in this book: thesignificance of couple relationships and relatedness; the role that friendships play inour lives; how personal life changes across the life course; the role that material cultureand consumer culture play in people's lives, and how new consumption patterns haveinfluenced our relationships to our bodies; the meanings attached to and the distinctionsdrawn between the 'private space of the home and public spaces, and the significance

of these to personal life; and the interconnections between personal lives and politics”.Personal life in this research is attached to that of

the undergraduate, defined as students studying for their first degree at a university or college.

1.2.3 The involvement theory

The involvement theory, developed by Alexander W Astin is by far one of themost trusted theoretical structures when it comes to investigating students’development as well as contributing to a more effective learning environment Astin(1999) defined student involvement as “the amount of physical and psycho-logicalenergy that the student devotes to the academic experience” while maintaining bothquantitative (how long, how many times etc) and qualitative (focusing ability,understanding etc) He gave an example of a highly involved student who significantlycommits himself into studying, spends an adequate amount of time on the campus,engages in organizations or clubs and frequently has interaction between facultymembers and other students The concepts of this theory are made of 3 components,which include “inputs” – their backgrounds and preceding experiences, “environment”– justification of students’ experiences during college, and “outcomes” means theirknowledge, characteristics, manners, beliefs and values post-graduation

Researchers supporting Astin’s theory, stated that "Astin’s theoreticalframework helps explain empirical knowledge about environmental influences onstudent development from a variety of psychosocial and learning pedagogies "(Foreman & Retallick, 2013) as the involvement theory is an educational postulatesbecause it helps improve the educational programs for students Involvements occur notonly co-curricularly but also off-campus alongside with various activities Rubin,Bommer and Baldwin (2002) reported that the higher extracurricular index score astudent has, the faster he gains interpersonal skills consisting of communication,initiative, decision making and teamwork The extracurricular index score can bedetermined by the number of clubs students partake in, the amount of time spent onECAs etc Baker (2008), Fischer ( 2007) and Tinto (2012) with research done on fouryear colleges also concluded that students who performed formal extracurricular andinformal social interactions have lower chances of dropping out due to the lack ofconnection Besides, involvement around recreational activities such as athletics, clubs,organizations do benefit students more than just pleasure and satisfaction by developingpersonal self in both social groups and academically (Lawhorn, 2008) They maypromote students in their learning career as well as their profession pursuit

In contrast, Axelson and Flick (2011) presented that delinquents and students whodetached themselves from their studies were hardly seen on campus, did not do anyECAs, have negligibly little contact with other faculty members and did not persist tostay in colleges Meanwhile, in regard to the data of the National Longitudinal Survey

of Freshman (NLSF), Fischer (2007) indicated that first-year students at colleges anduniversity who shared the experiences of doing formal ECAs with with facultymembers and informal social activities with their peer groups despite racial backgroundand ethnicity satisfy with their college and have higher chance of staying at colleges

1.3 Review of previous relevant studies

1.3.1 Development of ECAs - Students’ preferences in ECAs

Studies of related literature indicate that extracurricular activity programsplayed a crucial role in early cultures It was said that ECAs were first established inthe United States in the 19th century And students in American schools were the first

to initiate athletic clubs In the meantime, academic clubs were starting to be known among students first at Yale and Harvard University, which consisted ofdifferent literacy clubs, debate clubs with an aim to help students extend and elaborate

well-on the more formal knowledge (Casinger, J 2011) Currently, these activities havebecome more and more popular and schools also have clubs for all interests Today,according to Sadker & Zittleman in 2010, approximately 1 out of 4 students spend timetaking part in academic clubs Dang and Nguyen (2021) pointed out that the majority

of students taking part-time jobs are freshmen and sophomores, particularly those whoresided in rural areas and studied at private universities In another research, Hai et al.(2020) also showed that “most of the students spent more time participating in socialactivities (70.9%), followed by cultural and art activities, fitness-sports (40.9%), andthen learning and scientific research activities”

1.3.2 Reasons for an increase in the number of students attending ECAs

Throughout the last century, (Gholson, 1983) ECAs have gradually become asignificant part in educational elements of school programs Students are said tobecome more interested in school due to the wide range of outdoor activities Long,

Buser, and Jackson (1977) proposed the various explanations for the development and welcoming of ECAs:

- Parents had more craving in the performance of childrens

- Teachers preferred students’ activities to classroom activities

- Students took more interest in the activities than academic works

- Extracurricular activities grew in popularity as the number of students going to school increased significantly

Extracurricular activities have also provided ample opportunities to the studentssince it started to become a part of American schools In 1956, Miller, Moyer, andPatrick suggested a comprehensive summary of some potential factors that ECAswould contribute to the academic performance of students

- To fulfill the current personal interests and discover new potentials

- To educate students with numerous skills including communications, leadership, cooperation, team working and independent works

- To flourish the morale and spirit of school

- To improve the mental and physical health of students

- To improve the gregarious trait of personality of youth

- To widen the creative capabilities of students

In addition, Reeves (2008) also yielded some conclusions that if there had beenmore than six students who had their interests in common, a new club could have beenfounded In one of his studies in Woodstock High School in Illinois, it was cited thatstudents who participated in ECAs had superior results during learning processes ratherthan the non-participants That resulted in saying that total school performances would

be getting better and the entire community would be benefited

According to a study of students from Hue University of Medicine andPharmacy in 2020, their findings showed that most students chose to participate inECAs to help themselves be more confident (76.8%) and expand their relationship(77.7%) More than 52% of the participants thought that participating in ECAs helpedthem develop their skills and improve their skills, more than 24% said that attendingECAs would increase their chances to find jobs and improve good grades or learningoutcomes

1.3.3 The impacts of ECAs on students’ academic and personal development

Extracurricular activities have a favorable influence on students' personal lives,according to the majority of studies on the subject

Personal wellness, academic achievement, social and interpersonal skills areoften the more common aspects that benefit from involvement in some kinds of out-of-school activities

1.3.3.1 Personal wellness

Wilson (2009) suggested that it is self-evident that involvement in ECAs canhelp with mental health When compared to individuals who did not participate inphysical ECAs, students' self-perceptions may actually improve According to Daley

& Leah (2003), participating in out-of-school physical activities can improve a youth'smental health by reducing stress, maintaining a healthy physique, and therefore loweringworry over their appearances According to the same study, partaking in these activities mayhelp adolescents acquire confidence in their physical and social identities Adolescents maybenefit from ECAs because they provide them more opportunities to engage with people,form bonds, and acquire social confidence People who participated in extracurricularphysical activities had higher self-perceptions than those who did not, according to Daley &Leah (2003, as cited in Wilson, 2009)

1.3.3.2 Academic success

Although there are many opinions about whether taking part in ECAs has someinfluence on academic success of students, the majority of research on the subjectshows a positive correlation with the students' academic achievement According toReeves (2008, as cited in Wilson, 2009, p 14), students who took part in three to fourECAs during the academic year had dramatically better grades than those whoparticipated in no out-of-school activities at all According to Darling, Caldwell, andSmith (2005, as cited in Wilson, 2009), athletic participation is linked to higher gradepoint averages, fewer disciplinary referrals, lower absentee rates, lower dropout rates,stronger commitment to the school, more likely to attend college full time and graduate,applying to more universities and colleges, and having a better occupational status 15years after high school

1.3.3.3 Social and interpersonal skills

Participants of ECAs can also learn important skills, e.g working in a team,leadership skills, presentation skills, and these kinds of skills may help them in otherparts of their lives When students go further in their education, those participants aremore likely to make friends easily, adapt to a new environment, and leadership andworking skills acquired from previous experience in those activities The likelihoodthat the students will be involved with problem behaviors is also decreased by takingpart in out-of-school activities According to Olson (2008, as cited in Wilson, 2009, p.13), participation in a school's music program lessened students' feelings of alienation,promoted individual growth, and provided a common bond between home and school.

Some research conducted in Vietnam on the subject also supports the idea thatparticipating in ECAs have a positive impact on students Hai et al (2020) stated thatresults from multivariate logistic regression revealed that there was an associationbetween participation in ECAs with depression, anxiety, and stress Participation inECAs had a positive impact on reducing the risk of depression, anxiety, and stress forstudents Pham et al (2021) concluded :"sport activity was directly correlated with lifesatisfaction, purpose in life and hopeful future Volunteer activity directly leads to lifesatisfaction and hopeful future, but is not involved in purpose in life) In addition, theresults show an insignificant relationship between art activity and positive youthdevelopment" (p 7)

1.4 Summary

There were many key points presented in the Review of Relevant Studies Theliterature review indicated the establishment and development of ECAs ECAs,consisting of academics and athletic clubs, were first established in the US in the 19thcentury with an aim to help students with expanding and expounding on the moreformal knowledge Today, approximately 25% of students attend literacy clubs (Sadker

& Zittleman, 2010) while in Vietnam, more than 70% of students choose to engage insocial activities Besides, the majority of students working part-time are freshmen andsophomores, especially those who live in rural areas and study at private universities(Hai, H H et al 2020)

ECAs have become more and more popular as the number of students attendingschool has increased significantly Due to the wide range of outdoor activities, studentsare said to be more interested in school The development and welcoming of ECAshave been explained by various factors (e.g., teachers’ preference for outdoor activities,students’ interests) (Long, Buser, & Jackson, 1977) In addition, ECAs

involvement was indicated to have potential contributing factors on students’ academicperformance (e.g., fulfilling students’ personal interest, educating students withnumerous skills) (Miller, Moyer, & Patrick, 1956).

In the context of personal development, students who participate in voluntary,school-based, ECAs ‘have better academic performance, more regular attendance and astrong connection to their school’ It follows that involvement may lead to increasedmental health wellness, higher student engagement and accomplishment, stronger long-term educational results, and the discovery that participation may reduce problematicbehaviours (Wilson, 2009, p.10) Furthermore, students who participated in ECAsreportedly performed better in the learning process than non-participants, which alsoled to improvement on the school’s overall performance (Reeves, 2008) On the otherhand, more than 52% of ECAs participants felt that the experience has helped themimprove their skills, and approximately 24% claimed they can get a good job, improvetheir grades and learning outcomes by attending ECAs (Medical and PharmaceuticalUniversity in Hue, 2020)

CHAPTER 2: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter will reflect the procedure in which the data from the survey will be analyzed and performed in the chart form In addition, the discussion will be concerned about the reasons why students engage in ECAs, the effects of ECAs on students’ personal life and methods which students are using to participate in ECAs effectively.

2.1 The reasons for students’ participating in ECAs

With the authors' assumption to undertake research on ECAs, a large amount ofdata was collected and included To perform a quantitative survey on ECAparticipation, a questionnaire was created The poll drew 102 NEU students who hadpreviously participated in ECAs as well as those who had never participated in suchactivities As a result, the results of the survey would serve as the foundation formaking suggestions

2.1.1 The proportion of students participating in ECAs

Figure 2.1: The percentage of ECAs participation among students

ECAs are growing increasingly popular among students these days, as can beobserved It is easy to see how common ECAs are among students based on the results

of the survey Out of 102 participants of the questionnaire, 72 students (equivalent to70.6 %) responded that they did take part in some kinds of ECAs On the other hand,

30 students who made up about a third of the survey admitted that they have reasons tonot engage in out-of-school at all

Figure 2.2: The importance of participating in ECAs

When being asked about how important it is to participate in ECAs, nearly 80%

of those who take part in these kinds of activities stated that it is either fairly important

or very important Meanwhile, 14 students out of 102 participants of the questionnairebelieved that it is important to take part in ECAs Only one student thinks it is slightlyimportant to engage in ECAs and unsurprisingly, no participant stated that ECAs arenot at all important In general, most students think it is important to take part in ECAswhile only one student shares the opposite opinion

Figure 2.3: Level of importance of each type of ECAs

In the questionnaire, the authors included several types of ECAs, namely

academic and researching activities, personal skills development activities (debating,presentation, organizing skills,…), personal talents activities (developing andimproving art related skills), social activities (freelance, voluntary works,…), andsporting activities Looking at figure 2.3, it is readily apparent that personal skillsdevelopment activities are considered the most important ECA while taking part inresearching activities is slightly less essential When filling the questionnaire, theparticipants said that talent-related activities are not as important as the previous two,but they are more relevant than social activities Lastly, sporting activities seemed to bethe least critical activities when 27 students said sport-related activities are notimportant at all In more detail, personal skills development ECAs are considered to bemost important by 15 participants, followed by academic activities at 10 students.Meanwhile, the number of students who consider the other three ECAs was relativelysimilar with the respective figures being 4 to 5 students ECAs for gifted students aremostly considered as important by 14 students and slightly important by 9 students.The figure for social activities has a reversed pattern with 11 and 15 studentsrespectively While sporting activities have the highest number of responses of “Not atall important”, there aren’t any similar arguments on social ECAs.

The result from figure 2.3 above has a close connection to the afterward finding

of the authors The bar chart of figure 2.4 below illustrates the percentage ofparticipants in each category mentioned above The type of ECA that students engagewith the most is personal skills development ECAs, which account for up to 61.1 % or

44 out of 72 participants The second most popular ECA among participants isacademic and research activities, which stood at 44.4 % or 32 students taking part inthis type of ECA Social and personal hobbies-related activities are the third and fourthmost popular ECA with the proportion falling at 47.2% and 30.6% respectively Lastbut not surprisingly, sports-related activities are the least popular, with only 13 out of

72 respondents participating in ECAs

Overall, students tend to join ECAs that they considered to be necessary orhelpful for their own development of personal lives These findings point out one of thereasons why students choose to participate in ECAs that could, later on, help withgiving out some recommendations for both students and the organizers of the ECAs

2.1.2 The reasons for students’ participation in ECAs

Figure 2.4: Reasons for participating in ECAs

During the survey, the authors gave out 7 most common reasons for students’participation in ECAs The result pointed out that most participants want to learn andpractice skills from these ECAs with 64 responses or 88.9% of all participants that areengaging in ECAs, closely followed by the students’ personal interest at 84.7% of allresponses from the same bracket Moreover, 70.8% of participants said they choose toengage in ECAs because the certifications they receive from ECA organizers can helpthem gain scholarships and make a better CV Besides, about half of the students joinECAs for completing the activities of the school unions Suggestions from outsidesources, such as friends, family, and social media sites, have a little impact on thedecision of 21 to 27 out of 72 students (or roughly 66.7%) to join these ECAs.However, according to the report, what appears to be typical in most Asian countries -familial tendencies – is not a very common explanation Because of this, only 8students or 1.4% participate in ECAs Surprisingly, the authors provided an option forother reasons that were not given out, and just one student stated that participating inECAs is beneficial to society.

2.1.3 The degree of satisfaction of students when participating in ECAs.

Figure 2.5: Degree of satisfaction when participating in ECAs

Since there are several reasons why students participate in ECAs, the authorswanted to know whether or not the students are satisfied with the ECAs that they areparticipating in The results in the chart below revealed some interesting numbers.

As can be seen from figure 2.5, it is apparent that the most common degree ofsatisfaction when participation in ECAs spread from 40% to 80% In addition, thenumber of students either not at all satisfied or partly satisfied accounted for thesmallest proportion

More details, most students were in the degree of satisfaction of 60% - 80%,which made up 41.7% of the survey, while those in the 40% - 60% group were reported

to constitute about 32% Moreover, the number of students who are very satisfied withthe ECAs they are participating in only comprise 12.5%, in other words, only 1 out of 8participants

With regard to the other groups, only 9.7% or 7 students were slightly satisfiedwith the ECAs they are participating in Finally, the rest of the chart at merely 4% wasfairly dissatisfied at the degree of 0% - 20%

When asked about what needs that ECAs have met the demand of the students,most of the participants responded that they have learned and obtained more skills andknowledge that are suitable for their personal orientations They also had the chance toexplore their potential and what direction they should follow in the future 59.7% ofthem have joined ECAs that help change society in a better way, and the same number

of the participants wanted to work in a professional environment Significantly, whenthe students enter their adolescence, they tend to broaden their connection with otherpeople, and 81.9% of the students have this wish satisfied when participating in ECAs.

On the other hand, the ECAs still have some existing drawbacks The authorsfound out that half of the participants think that the available ECAs are still too generaland don’t create a practical impact on society 41.7% of them had to work in a stressfulenvironment for several reasons, for example, they encountered a large amount of workthat resulted in an imbalance between their personal lives and their work Some otherdrawbacks, namely the students don’t have the chance to improve their skills or gainsuitable knowledge, lack of professionalism and the ECAs didn’t suit the students’tendencies are among the less common dissatisfaction of the participants

2.2 The impacts of ECAs on students’ personal life

When looking at the variety of ECAs options students may choose, it is of greatinterest to determine how being involved in different kinds of activities affects thestudents’ personal life, in both positive and negative ways

2.2.1 Students’ benefits of engaging in ECAs

To understand the benefits of being involved in ECAs, it is important to know how these activities are influencing educational and career pathways beyond

university The following figure 2.6 depicts respondents’ perspectives towards the positive influence of ECAs on their personal development

Figure 2.6: Students’ benefits of engaging in ECAs

In the survey questionnaire, we included several noticeable benefits of engaging

in ECAs, including knowledge and skills enhancement, career pathways exploration,positive social impact, professional workplace experience, networking opportunities,resume improvement (for study abroad and working purposes) Overall, it can beobserved that the majority of survey participants hold a positive attitude towards ECAsinvolvement, in which the lowest concurrence figure was reported at 64% and highest

at 86% Additionally, the number of opponents was significantly lower in all reportcategories

It can be observed that the highest figure of concurrence was recorded at 62respondents, equal to 86% of total survey participants, in two categories of careerpathways exploration and networking opportunities Besides, the category ofknowledge and skills enhancement held the second-highest figure at 56 respondents,equivalent to 76% of total attendants Meanwhile, both positive social impacts andresume improvement categories were reported as having 71% of respondents agree tothe aforementioned benefits Surprisingly, the result shown in the professionalworkplace experience demonstrated an unexpected number when opponents accountedfor approximately 25% of respondents, while the figure of concurrence was reported atonly 46 attendants (64%)

In conclusion, the majority of students who participated in the survey consideredbeing involved in ECAs to have an overall worthwhile experience and beneficialimpacts on students’ personal development, especially for those interested in potentialcareer pathways exploration and seeking networking opportunities