Abstract

• The main aim of this research is to investigate the factors influencing students’ participation in co-curricular activities at the Middle School Level. This study sought four possible factors influencing students’ participation in co-curricular activities such as the roles of teachers, infrastructures, funding and parental involvement. Descriptive survey design was used and the respondents included (13) principals, (42) co-curricular teachers and (471) middle school students from (13) schools within Kyauktaga Township of Bago Region. (526) respondents were selected by using stratified sampling and simple random sampling methods. Data was collected by using attitude questionnaires for three different types of respondents and a set of participation questionnaire for students only. So, students are asked by two questionnaires. Principals and teachers’ attitude questionnaires consist of (10) items for each factor. Students’ attitude questionnaire contains (6) items for each factor. Students’ participation questionnaires contain (10) Likert-type items. Moreover, researcher conducted interview with (13) principals to enhance the credibility of current research findings. All questionnaires are self-structured. Data analysis included both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The quantitative results indicated that these four factors have significant and positive relationship towards students’ participation in co-curricular activities (the role of teacher r(471) = .407***, p< .001, infrastructures r (471) = .310***, p< .001, funding r(471) = .199***, p< .001 and parental involvement r(471) = .292***, p< .001). Teachers’ role factors is the most influent factor among them and 22% of the combination of four predictor variables can be predicted from the influencing factors. It can be concluded that these factors are necessary to become more participation of students in co-curricular activities at the middle school level.