The correlations between the 21st century skills and the experiences gained by attending extracurricular activities of nursing students

Abstract

The purposes of this analytical survey research were to assess the experience gained by extra curriculum activities along with the 21st century skills, and to determine the correlations between these two factors. Participants were 307 nursing students who enrolled in academic year 2018 of the Boromarajonani College of Nursing Yala (BCN Yala). The research instrument was developed by researchers. It is used to collect the following data: demographic data, extra curriculum activities, and the 21st century skills. Data was analyzed by using descriptive statistics and the Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient. The research findings illustrated that 1) Nursing students had overall experience of attending the extracurricular activities at moderate level. Among four domains of extracurricular activities including: mental development, service minded development, life skill development, and academic related skill development, the student had experienced the service minded development activities the most whereas the least domain students had experienced was academic related skill development activities. 2) The analysis of 21st century skills of nursing students showed that the overall score was in a high level. The cultural diversity perceptive aspect had the highest mean and was in high level whereas reading, writing and calculating (3R) skills aspect had the lowest mean and was in moderate level, especially reading and writing English skills. 3) The correlations between experience of attending the extracurricular activities and 21st century skills were positively significant at moderate level, of which the academic related skill development had the strongest relationship with experience of attending the extracurricular activities. Therefore, educators who responsible for student affairs should apply/integrate the extracurricular activities into the regular classroom activities in order to encourage students to improve their academic skills especially 3R skills in English to be able to effectively communicate with others.