Emily Pasker
Psych 332 – 01
Critique and Related Paper Unit Two
There are many forms of extracurricular activities that youth are presented with at
a young age. Many are interested to see what these activities have an effect over as the
youth continues to age. Some believe that there are negative effects and others believe that
there are positive effects to these activities. Fredricks and Eccles took on the challenge of
discovering exactly what types of extracurriculars effect which students and in which way
throughout their years in school. They tested sports, prosocial activities, as well as club
activities to find a suitable argument to the battle as to whether or not these activities are
good for students.
In the article, Is Extracurricular Participation Associated with Beneficial Outcomes?
Concurrent and Longitudinal Relations, Fredricks and Eccles talked about the benefits and
the drawbacks of participating in extracurricular activities while in school. They studied
the relationship between race as well as gender. Their findings were very interesting. They
did a random selection of 1,500 families to study where they did five waves of data
collection. They followed these students from 7th grade until they were in their early
twenties. Through this study, they found that both European American girls and African
American girls had higher rates of club participation than they had expected. African
