Running head: GOAL-SETTING ON EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

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Group Assignment Cover Sheet
Subject Name

Academic Skills

Lecturer’s Name

Dương Thị Hoàng Oanh

Title of Assignment

Final Exam – Mini research

Class

BBUS 4.2

Group Number

3

Student Number and Name

1. Trương Hải Nghi
2. Huỳnh Ngọc Thiên Lý
3. Võ Minh Tâm

Contact Number or Email

0979992773 – truonghainghi2131@gmail.com

Length

16 pages – 2940 words

Due Date

12/06/2014

Date Submitted

12/06/2014

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GOAL-SETTING ON EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
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Goal-setting on extracurricular activities participation
Trương Hải Nghi, Huỳnh Ngọc Thiên Lý, Võ Minh Tâm
Academic Skills
12/06/2014
Dr. Duong Thi Hoang Oanh

GOAL-SETTING ON EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
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Abstract
The main purpose of this research is to identify and analyze the effects of goal-setting on extracurricular activities participation, from which this significant study sheds light on the implications of the results followed by some clear recommendations for tertiary students. As a primary research, this report is written based on the results, which is the summarized answers of 118 students of different universities to the questions given in an online survey.
Some comparisons to other professional researchers’ reports help clarify this issue.
Generally, most of students admitted that goal-setting before extracurricular participation is crucial but they scarcely set detailed and effective goals and the similar answers reflect that setting goals efficiently does affect the students’ performance as well as their achievements during the whole activity-participating process. Moreover, some suggestions and detailed methods from the experts on making an appropriate goal will be recommended at the end of this research.

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Goal-setting on extracurricular activities participation
Enrolling in many extracurricular activities is becoming more familiar with students in universities these days. Research has shown that about 7 million of students take part in afterschool programs (Afterschool Alliance, 2005; Capizzano et al., 2000) and a large number of them stay involved in youth organizations and some programs related to communication or society (Boys & Girls Clubs of America, 2004; Girls Inc., 2004; U.S. Department of
Agriculture, 2003). However, not all of them can gain good results or satisfactory success from many advantages of extracurricular activities such as: improving soft skills, expanding relationship, enhancing academic performance, opportunities for future career, etc. A lot of students still feel stressful because of their overscheduling after school activities. They can not balance between academic performance and organized activities. The reason is that most of ineffective students do not know how to take priorities and manage their time appropriately. Fundamentally, it is also because students rarely set goals before participating in extracurricular activities.
This research is to explain, analyze and figure out how goal-setting affects the students’ participation in extracurricular activities. Based on the statistic after consulting 118 students, some discussion will be made. Furthermore, in this research, several feasible solutions and their implementation will be outlined to assist students in working effectively in their organized activities.
Literature Review
It has become apparent in recent years that the reality of extracurricular activities participation in universities is an issue that many people feel strongly about. In Mahoney’s national surveys (2006), the researcher stated that more than 80% of young generation,

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especially students in universities, spent their leisure time taking part in extracurricular contexts. These activities can be joining in students’ council, youth groups, sport clubs or cheer team, etc. Not only Holland and Andre (1987) but also Larson (2000) claimed that extracurricular activities made a positive impact on the growth and development of young adults. They are directly linked to students’ academic and social success. Hence, these activities give students opportunities to explore themselves, their aptitude and intuition.
Students also have chances to improve their skills (such as: team-work, leadership, communicating, etc) and challenge themselves in many valuable tasks.(Eccles and Gootman
2002; Fredricks and Eccles 2005). Moreover, another advantage of afterschool activities is career’s achievement. Participating in extracurricular activities can provide a student comparative advantage when he/she applies for a job (Oxford Royale Academy, 2014).
In spite of the benefits of extracurricular activities, there are also negative outcomes.
Predictably, overscheduling afterschool activities of students’ participation is becoming an growing concern of society. (Jennifer A. Fredricks, 2011).According to Joseph L. Mahoney,
Angel L. Harris, and Jacquelynne Eccles (2006), a small group of students ( about 3 or 6%) spent 20 or more hours/week participating. Many reporters (Fountain, 2005; Gilbert, 1999;
Noonan, 2001) and book writers (Elkind, 2001; Rosenfeld and Wise, 2000) recommended that high pressure and stress appear in the lives of youth because of their participation in after school activities. Consequently, in this case, students will also have unsatisfactory academic performance. Moreover, overscheduling extracurricular activities can shorten students’ relaxing time, time for enjoying themselves and taking care of their families, their relatives.(Melman et al.2008; Shaw et al. 1996).
There are a lot of reasons which researchers have been indicated to explain why students

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are overscheduled when participating in after school activities. Luthar and Sexton (2005);
Mahoney et al (2006) implied that youth join extracurricular contexts because they want to live up to their parents ‘expectation or they are under pressure of their parents. Another reason is that students have a lot of career ambitions, too much “ It will be useful for my future”, “ It impresses other people” (Mahoney, 2006) So, they just take part in as many activities as possible without selecting, without any goal.(Mahoney, 2006). However, according to The McGraw Center (2009), to achieve your ambition, you must set goals and work with them both in activities and academic performance.
Methodology
This research is conducted using both primary qualitative and quantitative method.
There are 118 students of University of Economics randomly answering a set of multiplechoice questionnaires (see appendix) and five students participated in the personal interview afterward. Result
Situation of goal-setting in extracurricular activities
Based on question 1 (See appendix), 85 % asked students said that they were joining extracurricular activities.
Question 2 asked about the effectiveness of extracurricular activities of students rating from 0% to 100%. The data revealed that 16 % students thought their extracurricular contexts was from 80% to 100% in effectiveness but 37% students agreed that joining these activities only valued from 0 to 60% ( see the chart below )

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Effectiveness of participating in extracurriculum activities
1%
5%

16%

31%

47%

0-20%

20-40%

40-60%

60-80%

80-100%

To discovery deeply the reality of setting goal in students’ life and discover some first relations between setting goals and effectiveness in extracurricular participation, we conducted two next questions. Questions 3 asked about how important for students to set goals before participating in extracurricular activities and the answer included four choices: very important, important, quite important and not important. 56% students thought that setting goals was very important, whereas only 4% students considered goal-setting to be less important or not important at all
How important setting goals are with students
2%

2%

41%
56%

Very important

Quite important

Less important

Not important at all

Question 4 (See appendix) was a forced question requiring students to choose among four options: detailed and specific goals; quite detailed and specific goals; undetailed goals and no goals. The purpose of this question was to see how detailed goals students had. The

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data was very surprising as there were several differences between how important setting goals to students and how detailed goals they made. Only 12% had detailed and specific goals
(See the tables), compared with 56 % students who assumed that setting goals was very important. Quality of goals
4%
24%
60%
12%
0%

10%
No goals

20%
Undetailed goals

30%

40%

Quite detailed and specific goals

50%

60%

70%

Detailed and specific goals

To summarize the situations, it could be clarified to see that there were a lot of students (85%) joining activities and slight percentage of them had detailed and specific goals
(12%). As a result, although it took a lot of time and efforts to take part in these activities, students did not gain the effective outcomes.
The relation between goal-setting and effectiveness in extracurricular activities participation To discover intensely the relation between goal-setting and effectiveness in extracurricular activities participation, we conducted question 5 and 6
Question 5 asked whether setting goals affected students’ performance in their extracurricular activities. Most respondents said they were agreed (see the chart below)
100%

89%

80%
60%
40%
11%

20%
0%
Agree

Disagree

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Question 6 was a nominal question asking participants how much effective that they supposed goal-setting to have on their performance in extracurricular activities. Students could score from 0 to 100% to measure this issue. It can be seen in this chart that 11 % students thought that setting goals played an important role (from 80 to 100 %) in their performance. Moreover, 40 % respondents said that the impact of goal-setting were from 60 to 80%
Impact of goal-setting

0-20%

20-40%

40-60%

60-80%

80-100%

%

4%

12 %

33 %

40%

11 %

The connection between setting goal and effectiveness in extracurricular activities participation can be realized in the chart and table below.
Connection between goal-setting and effectiveness in extracurricular activitie 20%
No goals

0%
0%

60%

20%

0%

11%

Undetailed goals

0%
Quite detailed and specific goals

44%

33%

11%
3%

27%

59%

11%
0%

Detailed and specific goals

14%

42%
44%

0%

10%

20%

30%

0-20%

20-40%

40-60%

60-80%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80-100%

With detailed and specific goals, most of people (44%) agreed that their extracurricular activities’ effective outcomes accounted for between 80% and 100%. In similarity, 59% students with quite detailed and specific goals believed that effectiveness of

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extracurricular activities was from 60% to 80%. As regard to undetailed goals, 44% students accepted that these participation only valued from 40% to 60%
Discussions
Why do students think goal-setting is important?
There are some reasons for the fact that most of tertiary students do suppose goalsetting before extracurricular participation to be crucial, one of which is that an efficient goalsetting affects us in emotional and physical aspects of life and makes our career/study and relationships more effective. Consequently, extracurricular activities participation is not the exception. Goal-setting is also an indispensable step of time-management which is one of the most efficient working methods. This strengthens students by enhancing the abilities to create master plan, cope with info-heavy courses and multiple deadline, manage distraction and stay focus, avoid putting off to do list and manage stress or depression so that young people can utilize their time to get the best benefits from academic as well as extra activities.
Why do not many students set detailed and specific goals?
Many students, whenever they have been asked about their thought of goal-setting, a lot of them will say “Well, it is very important to my life, to my career and to my activities”.
In certain circumstances, as the results of the conducted survey, 56% of students shared that it is very important to set goal before attending extracurricular activities (Result of question 3).
However, the percentage of students who set detailed and specific goals on extracurricular activities was just only 12% (Result of question 4). There are four main reasons leading to this issue.
Firstly, students’ goals are too simple without much deep cultivation. This leads to the fact that many students tend to set as many undetailed goals but yet, seem to be indispensible

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to them as possible. In their mind, students do not figure out which activities will support their career, they just assume extracurricular activities to be one of the factors which makes their CVs precious. Additionally, many young adults neglect the relation between goalsetting and their actual performances. This can be an answer explaining why only 11% of students thought goal-setting thoroughly affected their extracurricular activities’ performances (Result question 6). Moreover, the plurality of students think that extracurricular activities are just “activities” or the means of recreation. Students just join because of their hobbies, their preferences, so why they have to waste time setting goals?
Last but not least, the most usual reason is that students do not actually master the methods of setting goal appropriately and effectively.
Why do setting goals affect students’ performance?
Based on the survey and interview, it could be concluded that there are three main reasons why goal setting affects the students’ performances in extracurricular activities: process of goal-setting before participating, motivation during participating and observation after joining.
Setting goals before taking part in an extracurricular activity means that students must recognize their tasks in this activity as well as estimate to which extent they enhance your abilities. Based on this observation, students can choose the most suitable one to join, set a smart goal of what they desire from the activity. Hence, this helps eliminate some timeconsuming and unvalued activities.
During students’ engagement with activities, goals can become their motivation whenever they feel frustrated for obstacles along the way since they realize that these activities are necessary not only for present time improvement but also for their development in the future. Furthermore, goals will grant students the direction to prioritize their various

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tasks effectively. Likewise, based on these goals, students can keep control over these activities with more appropriate time-management and attitudes towards external influences, which usually make them distracted and exhausted.
After finishing the activity, students can have significant observations, deeply figure out their strengths and weaknesses in order to gain self-awareness ability leading to their enhancement in future.
Suggestion for effective goal-setting process
Turning to some suggestions for the efficient goal-setting process. The first recommended step is to identify your purposes of accomplishing an activity. The decision must be considered based on what are truly important and in need to achieve what you really desire to be. People may want to fulfill themselves with improvements or achievements but sometimes, overextending oneself is just not necessary, priorities must be set and it is much wiser to put the first things first. For examples, before registering for a non-academic activity, it is advised by experts to answer the question “Why?” for every choice. If the answer is
“Because this helps me with my career/study…” instead of “Just for fun” or such alike, we will have strong motivation for the next steps. Another tip is to use your imagination to visualize your individually “desired direction and destination” (Stephen, 1989). According to
“7 Habits of effective people” (1989) of Stephen Covey, this step is called “Begin with the
End in mind” and has motivated as well as inspired young adults strongly in their effective routines to become successful people.
Setting goal should be followed by a detailed plan, which is also an indispensable part of goal-setting. S.M.A.R.T goal theory (specific, measurable, achievable, resources, time bound) should be applied and decision must stick to the final goal so that it is simple to prioritize your tasks in everyday’ to-do-list, which is recommended as a useful tool to keep

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you staying focused toward the goals. These useful tips will surely help students a lot with managing time, handling stress and achieving success.
Conclusions
The research interprets the fact that effective goal-setting at the beginning will result in an efficient process of participating and accomplishing extracurricular activities. Via the conducted survey followed by a significant discussion compared with other previous studies on the effective methods of learning/working, it is proved that students have more tendency to achieve their goals as well as to find it is easier to plan and lead their life successfully with detailed goals for every activity, one of which is a non-academic activity. It is undeniable that setting goals is an indispensable part of time management that grants young adults the ability to cope with heavy schedules including lots of activities, discover what is truly important and enjoy life simultaneously.

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Appendix
Questionnaires:
Question 1: Are you taking part in extracurricular activities?
A. Yes
B. No
Question 2: What is your evaluation on the effectiveness of your activities?
A. 0-20% in effectiveness
B. 20-40% in effectiveness
C. 40-60% in effectiveness
D. 60-80% in effectiveness
E. 80-100% in effectiveness
Question 3: How important is setting goals to you before you join in extracurricular activities? A. Very important
B. Important
C. Quite important
D. Not important
Questions 4: How much detailed and specific is your goal?
A. Detailed and specific goals
B. Quite detailed and specific goals
C. Undetailed goals
D. No goals
Question 5: Do you think goal-setting affects your performance in extracurricular activities?
A. Agree

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B. Not agree
Question 6: How much influence do you think that goal-setting has on your performance in extracurricular activities?
A. 0-20%
B. 20-40%
C. 40-60%
D. 60-80%
E. 80-100%
Interview main questions:
1. Why do you think goal-setting is important?
2. Why do not you set detailed and specific goals frequently?
3. Why do you think setting goals affects students’ performances?
4. Can you give your own suggestion for effective goal-setting process?

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