Extracurricular Activity on Music and Visual Art Associates with Children’ Academic Achievement by Transferring Each Subject Score

Abstract The present longitudinal study examined whether extracurricular activities in the arts have a positive association with general academic performance, which is mediated by improved art scores. Data was collected from 700 seventh-grade children (379 boys and 321 girls) for over three years. Information regarding their participation in extracurricular activities in music and visual arts, grade points in general academic performance (i.e., Japanese, Social Studies, Mathematics, Science, and English), music, and arts were obtained, at the end of the seventh and ninth grades. Structural equation modeling revealed that both participation in extracurriculars in music and visual arts was positively associated with improvements in general academic performance from seventh to ninth grade, and these associations were mediated by improvements in music and visual arts scores. This finding suggests that arts education can contribute to improving general academic performance.