Using the academic data of students from a university in Guangdong Province, China, this paper employs a propensity score matching and a difference-in-differences approach to identify the causal effect of volunteering on academic performance, drawing on volunteers of the 15th National Games of the People’s Republic of China in 2025. Students who participated in volunteer activity are treated as the treatment group, while those who did not are treated as the control group. The results show that, on average, volunteer participation has no significant effect on students' grade point average (GPA). However, heterogeneous effects exist across different students: volunteer activities positively affect students with lower academic performance but negatively affect those with higher academic performance. This pattern suggests that volunteer participation simultaneously generates a positive effect through the compensation policy of course regular performance and the negative effect through the dilution of learning resources. Based on these findings, we recommend that universities improve the institutional design of support systems for volunteer activities, establish a mechanism for coordinating academic assistance with volunteering, and guide students toward a rational understanding of volunteer participation.

Mingxin Wang, Baitao Chen, Mingyu Li, Xiaojie Zhang, Junran Chen, Renhao Yi. The Impact of Volunteering on Academic Performance of University Students: An Empirical Analysis Based on the Volunteers of the 15th National Games of China. Frontiers in Educational Research (2026), Vol. 9, Issue 5: 27-32. https://doi.org/10.25236/FER.2026.090505.

[1] Alghamdi S A, Alshomrani A T. Impact of Volunteerism on the Mental Health and Academic Performance of Medical Students: A Saudi-Based Cross-Sectional Study[J]. Cureus, 2024, 16(9): e68855.

[2] Chang T. The Effect of Pre-College Extracurricular Participation on First-Year College Engagement and Completion[R]. University of California at Berkeley, Center for Studies in Higher Education, 2017,2-14.

[3] Ding G，HE B. An Empirical Study on Influencing Factors of College Students’ Academic Performance[J]. Heilongjiang Researches on Higher Education, 2020(10): 145-151.

[4] Peng L. The Relationship of Volunteer Service Participation and College Students’ Subjective Well-being: A Chain Mediating Effect of Self-efficacy and Self-identity[J]. Chinese Journal of Clinical Psychology, 2022, 30(05): 1126-1129.

[5] Alganami F H, Keshky M E S E. Does volunteering benefit students' happiness, social connectedness, and self-efficacy? an interaction with gender[J]. BMC Psychology, 2025, 13: 553.

[6] Yang Z. Exploration of the Role Mechanism of Volunteer Service in Cultivating Positive Psychological Quality of College Students[J]. Chinese Journal of Clinical Psychology, 2025, 39(04): 106-110.

[7] Zhang W. College Students' Voluntary Service and Its Function on Social Trust[J]. Youth Studies, 2016, (3):21-30+94.

[8] Kovrov V V, Gafiatulina N K, and Bilovus V K. The Impact of Volunteering on the Social Activity of Students in Russian Universities[J]. State and Municipal Management Scholar Notes, 2022, (4): 292-296.

[9] Wu Y. Correlation Between Psychological Health and Academic Performance of College Students[J]. Heilongjiang Science, 2023, 14(23): 114-116.

[10] Li G. Pan Yong. Research on the Relationship Between Well-being, Second Language Grit, and Second Language Academic Performance among English Normal Students[J]. Psychologies Magazine, 2025, 20(21): 79-82+88.

[11] Sikora J, Green J. Gifts as Gains? The Impact of Volunteering on Young People's Educational and Occupational Attainment in Australia[J]. Australian Journal of Education, 2020, 64(2): 177-194.

[12] Zhang T, Xu D, Liu S. Undergraduates’ Time Allocation and Academic Achievement[J]. University Education Science, 2015, (2): 112-120.