Organized extracurricular activities and Chinese preschoolers’ development: Testing the over-scheduling hypothesis

• In Event: 2-069 - How changing macro-contexts shape child development and parenting: Examples from China

Integrative Statement

Chinese young children’s ecology of life has changed dramatically during the last few decades, and one change pertains to the popularization of organized extracurricular activities (EAs) among young children. In China, education has long been a tool for social mobility (Chao, 1996), and China’s engagement in the competitive global market and the implementation of family-planning policy have further exacerbated parents’ concerns for how to best set their children up for future academic and professional success (Fong, 2007). Many parents enroll their children in EAs to increase the chances of success in this always changing context (Kuan, 2015); however, over-scheduling hypothesis suggests that the positive effects of EAs may actually decline with excessive participation (Dumais, 2006). Despite the popularity and importance of EAs among Chinese young children, there is no empirical research focused on the impact of EAs among Chinese preschool-aged children. Is investment in EAs a beneficial or counterproductive act in this ever-changing society? The current study took place in Shanghai, China, and examined the effect of EAs on preschoolers’ development.

Participants included 695 preschool-aged children (52.3% girls) recruited from 12 preschools in Shanghai (Mean age = 49.47±6.57 months). Data were collected at two time points over a one-year span. At both time points, children’s cognitive, social-emotional, and language and early literacy development were individually assessed using the short-version East Asia-Pacific Early Child Development Scales (EAP-ECDS) (Rao et al., 2014). At Time 2, parents reported their child’s participation in EAs. About 84% of the children participated in at least one EA. Parents further reported the content, the total number of EAs (i.e., amount), the number of hours spent in EAs per week (i.e., intensity), the length of involvement in each EA by the time of data collection (i.e., duration), and children’s liking of each EA (i.e., interest). We coded the content of each EA into seven categories (i.e., art, English, academic, sports, chess, integrated educational program, other activities) and calculated the total number of involved categories to index the breadth of EAs.

Analyses were conducted using R. Multi-level modeling was utilized to account for the nesting design (i.e., children nested within classrooms). We first examined the linear effects of EAs on child outcomes at Time 2, controlling for demographic variables and children’s EAP-ECDS scores at Time 1. As shown in Table 1, EAs benefited children’s cognitive and language and emergent literacy development. Next, we examined whether intensive participation would actually interfere with children’s development by testing the quadratic effect of EAs on child outcomes. In Table 2, we used the inverted U (∩) symbol to graphically depict significant quadratic effects. The positive influence of EAs on children’s social-emotional development diminished at higher levels of intensity, breadth, and amount of EAs. The positive influence of EA participation on children’s language and emergent literacy also diminished when the breadth of EA activities was large. The findings suggest positive effects of EAs, while implying that intensive extracurricular participation may not benefit children’s social-emotional wellbeing, partially supporting the over-scheduling hypothesis.

Authors

• Lixin Ren, East China Normal University
  Presenting Author

• Jieqiong Fan, East China Normal University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Traci Kutaka, University of Denver
  Non-Presenting Author

• Xuan Li, New York University Shanghai
  Non-Presenting Author

• Pavel Chernyavskiy, University of Wyoming
  Non-Presenting Author