Educating the Student Body Taking Physical Activity and Physical Education to School (2013) / Chapter Skim
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4 Physical Activity, Fitness, and Physical Education: Effects on Academic Performance
4 Physical Activity, Fitness, and Physical Education: Effects on Academic Performance
Pages 161-196
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From page 161... ...
These topics depend on efficient and effective executive function, which has been linked to physical activity and physical fitness. • Executive function and brain health underlie academic performance.
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. The relationship of physical activity and physical fitness to cognitive and brain health and to academic performance is the subject of this chapter.
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Physical Fitness and Physical Activity: Relation to Academic Performance State-mandated academic achievement testing has had the unintended consequence of reducing opportunities for children to be physically active during the school day and beyond. In addition to a general shifting of time in school away from physical education to allow for more time on academic subjects, some children are withheld from physical education classes or recess to participate in remedial or enriched learning experiences designed to increase academic performance (Pellegrini and Bohn, 2005; see Chapter 5)
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The strongest relationships were found between aerobic fitness and achievement in mathematics, followed by IQ and reading performance. The range of cognitive performance measures, participant characteristics, and types of research design all mediated the relationship among physical activity, fitness, and academic performance.
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. Physical Fitness as a Learning Outcome of Physical Education and Its Relation to Academic Performance Achieving and maintaining a healthy level of aerobic fitness, as defined using criterion-referenced standards from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES; Welk et al., 2011)
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The researchers concluded that additional time dedicated to physical education did not inhibit academic performance (Shephard et al., 1984; Shephard, 1986; Trudeau and Shephard, 2008)
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, socioeconomic status and demographic factors explained little of the relationship between aerobic fitness and academic performance; however, socioeconomic status may be an explanatory variable for students of low fitness (London and Castrechini, 2011)
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was important because it helped bring attention to an emerging literature suggesting that physical activity may benefit cognitive development even as it also demonstrated the need for further study to better understand the multifaceted relationship between physical activity and cognitive and brain health. The regular engagement in physical activity achieved during physical education programming can also be related to academic performance, especially when the class is taught by a physical education teacher.
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Specifically, Coe and colleagues examined the association of enrollment in physical education and self-reported vigorous- or moderate-intensity physical activity outside school with performance in core academic courses and on the Terra Nova Standardized Achievement Test among more than 200 6th-grade students. Their findings indicate that academic performance was unaffected by enrollment in physical education classes, which were found to average only 19 minutes of vigorous- or moderate-intensity physical activity.
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suggests that interventions entailing aerobic physical activity have the greatest impact on academic performance; however, all types of physical activity, except those involving flexibility alone, contribute to enhanced academic performance, as do interventions that use small groups (about 10 students) rather than individuals or large groups.
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For discussion of the underlying constructs and differential effects of single bouts of physical activity on cognitive performance, see Tomporowski (2003)
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A randomized controlled trial entitled Physical Activity Across the Curriculum (PAAC) used cluster randomization among 24 schools to examine the effects of physically active classroom lessons on BMI and academic achievement (Donnelly et al., 2009)
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The children sat or walked on different days for an average of 19 minutes. The results suggest that the physical activity enhanced cognitive performance for the attention task but not for the task requiring working memory.
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Systematic observation by trained observers may yield important insight regarding the effects of short physical activity breaks on these behaviors. Indeed, systematic observations of student behavior have been used as an alternative means of measuring academic performance (Mahar et al., 2006; Grieco et al., 2009)
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From a slightly different perspective, survey data from 547 Virginia elementary school principals suggest that time dedicated to student participation in physical education, art, and music did not negatively influence academic performance (Wilkins et al., 2003)
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A greater understanding of the cognitive components that subserve academic performance and may be amenable to intervention has thereby been gained. Research conducted in both laboratory and field settings has helped define this line of inquiry and identify some preliminary underlying mechanisms.
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Based on their earlier findings on changes in cognitive control induced by aerobic training, Colcombe and Kramer (2003) conducted a meta- analysis to examine the relationship between aerobic training and cognition in older adults aged 55-80 using data from 18 randomized controlled exercise interventions.
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White matter volume changes also were evidenced following the aerobic fitness intervention, with increases in white atter tracts being observed within the anterior m third of the corpus callosum. These brain regions are important for cognition, as they have been implicated in the cognitive control of attention and memory processes.
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Taken together, the findings across studies suggest that an increase in aerobic fitness, derived from physical activity, is related to improvements in the integrity of brain structure and function and may underlie improvements in cognition across tasks requiring cognitive control. Although developmental differences exist, the general paradigm of this research can be applied to early stages of the life span, and some early attempts to do so have been made, as described below.
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In children a growing body of correlational research suggests differential brain structure related to aerobic fitness. Chaddock and colleagues (2010a,b)
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further observed that higher-fit children exhibited increased inhibitory control and response resolution and that higher basal ganglia volume was related to better task performance. These findings indicate that the dorsal striatum is involved in these aspects of higher-order cognition and that fitness may influence cognitive control during preadolescent development.
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. Given that higher-fit children also demonstrate better performance on cognitive control tasks, the P3 component appears to reflect the effectiveness of a subset of cognitive systems that support willed action (Hillman et al., 2009; Pontifex et al., 2011)
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For children in a school setting, regular participation in physical activity as part of an after-school program is particularly beneficial for tasks that require the use of working memory. Adiposity and Risk for Metabolic Syndrome as It Relates to Cognitive Health A related and emerging literature that has recently been popularized investigates the relationship of adiposity to cognitive and brain health and academic performance.
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. Collectively, these studies observed poorer future academic performance among children who entered school overweight or moved from a healthy weight to overweight during the course of development.
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LIMITATIONS Despite the promising findings described in this chapter, it should be noted that the study of the relationship of childhood physical activity, aerobic fitness, and adiposity to cognitive and brain health and academic performance is in its early stages. Accordingly, most studies have used designs that afford correlation rather than causation.
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Time spent engaged in physical activity is related not only to a healthier body but also to enriched cognitive development and lifelong brain health. Collectively, the findings across the body of literature in this area suggest that increases in aerobic fitness, derived from physical activity, are related to improvements in the integrity of brain structure and function that underlie academic performance.
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Overall, the benefits of additional time dedicated to physical education and other physical activity opportunities before, during, and after school outweigh the benefits of exclusive utilization of school time for academic learning, as physical activity opportunities offered across the curriculum do not inhibit academic performance. Both habitual and single bouts of physical activity contribute to enhanced academic performance.
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2008. Physical education and academic achievement in elementary school: Data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study.
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2000. Academic performance and participation in physical activity by secondary school adolescents.
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2011. Relationship of nutrition and physical activity behaviors and fitness measures to academic performance for sixth graders in a Midwest city school district.
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2009. Physical fitness and academic achievement in elementary school children.
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2007. Association of overweight with academic performance and social and behavioral problems: An update from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study.
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2011. A longitudinal examination of the link between youth physical fitness and academic achievement.
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2011. The association between school-based physical activity, including physical education, and academic performance: A systematic review of the literature.
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1986. Habitual physical activity and academic performance.
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2008. Physical education, school physical activity, school sports and academic performance.
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