The influence of participation of A'level Biology students in co-curricular activities on their Academic Scores in Kampala District

Abstract

Co-curricular activities are activities in which the students involve themselves after the regular school day has ended and fall outside area of the normal curriculum of the school. Biology at A’level is one of the worst done subjects at secondary level in Uganda. Therefore, participation in cocurricular activities can have a great impact on academic performance of biology in A’level. Thus, we need to find out the effect of participation in school leadership, sports, and school clubs on academic scores. The study was a cross-section survey for laying a basis of the effect of participation in such activities on academic performance of A’level biology. Questionnaires were used in the study, as these were handed out by the researchers to the respondents, the students to fill in the required information that was later used in analysis and making a conclusion and recommendation. Head boy, Head prefect, mess prefect and sanitary prefect were mostly the leadership positions students were engaging in, Netball, football and volleyball were the most sports activities students were participating in, and patriotic, debate music dance and drama were the school clubs students were participating in mostly. Various studies show that participation in cocurricular activities lead to success academically and does good health wise to a student. However, the school administrators and general public has limited access to this research, and therefore many A-level Biology students are not benefiting from the participation in cocurricular activities. In this research, the emphasis was on how participation in cocurricular activities particularly school leadership, school clubs and sports affects academic success. The research is then used to launch a campaign that school administrators may use to educate parents, students, and teachers of the benefits of cocurricular activity participation. The projects are oriented toward school administrators of government and private owned schools to ensure time School s allowed for A-level Biology students to emulate cocurricular activities for they are beneficial and also sensitize parents.