Linking participation in extracurricular and co-curricular activities with undergraduates social skills development

The academic curriculum is the essential business of education, while the holistic nature of the university experience extends beyond the formal curriculum, offering a wide range of experiences across extracurricular and co-curricular activities. Research on the impacts of extracurricular activities (ECAs) and co-curricular activities (CCAs) engagement brings either direct or indirect benefits to students in terms of their academic performance, educational aspirations and psychological well-being (Broh, 2002; Kuh 1995; Goldberg, 1946). Nevertheless, participation in ECAs and CCAs possibly has reverse impacts on students’ grades, additional costs and paid-work commitments (Thompson et al., 2013). Despite increasing interest in the impact of student participation in ECAs and CCAs in general, in the higher education context, a variety of ECAs and CCAs are provided to accommodate students’ social needs (Denman, 1967), thus benefiting acquiring social skills. However, few studies link ECAs and CCAs engagement with students’ social skills development, especially in the distinctive contexts of Sino-foreign cooperative universities. To fill this gap, this case study (Zhang & Veecock, 2023) is groundbreaking in its exploration of undergraduates’ perceptions at the first Sino-cooperative university in terms of ECAs and CCAs engagement and link with the impact of social skills development. Social Skills as one of the five MIDAS generic graduate attributes (Veecock & Zhang, 2023) has been made an extension in this study and the subskills of the Social Skills category are probed concerning student participation and engagement in ECAs and CCAs. By adopting mixed-methods approach with quantitative and qualitative data collection methods, the results show that social skills are highly perceived being acquired during their engagements in ECAs and CCAs by students. Implications of this study provide useful suggestions for both students and staff to cultivate undergraduates social skills for professional development during the holistic educational experiences across formal curricular, extracurricular and co-curricular activities.