Investigating the links between physical activity, self-regulation and educational outcomes in childhood
It is common knowledge that physical activity is associated with physiological and psychological benefits. The current study used secondary data on primary and secondary school students from the Millennium Cohort Study, a cohort of infants born in 2000-2001, to investigate the association between physical activity and self-regulation and the possible indirect relationship this may have on academic performance. There are two main findings. First, there is a simultaneous positive longitudinal association of both physical activity and emotional (not behavioral) regulation at all three time points, ages 7, 11, and 14. This relationship was negative for emotional regulation and negligible for behavioral regulation when managing socioeconomic status. Second, at the two time points (due to data availability), physical activity positively predicted academic performance through emotional regulation at age 7 and behavioral regulation at age 11. The impact of this relationship was more pronounced when controlling for socioeconomic status. Together, these findings show that emotional regulation is linked to physical activity in early childhood. Subsequently, emotional regulation predicted academic performance, suggesting that early interventions may focus on attention rather than behavior.
Vasilopoulos F, Ellefson MR (2021) An investigation of the association between physical activity, self-regulation, and educational outcomes in childhood. PLoS ONE 16(5): e0250984. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250984
Commentary
This study included only children surveyed in the UK (n = 4,043, 50% boys, 82% white, 18% ethnic minorities), ensuring that different school systems did not influence the relationships tested, and at age 14, a random subsample of 81% of the UK cohort members were They were asked to wear the device. The results showed that physical activity was significantly negatively associated with behavioral problems at 7 and 11 years, but not statistically significant at 14 years. The specific explanation for these results was that the activity environment of PA did not significantly predict emotional or behavioral regulation at age 7, and at 14 years, the combination of PA with individual ball games and team sports predicted both emotional and behavioral regulation, but other types of PA were not statistically significant .
In addition, the identification of developmental effects of PA through two aspects of self-regulation on academic performance suggests that there is a high correlation between behavioral regulation and PA. In addition, they also found a high correlation between the SES index and cognitive ability of control variables and previous academic performance at age 5.
Although the study showed the relationship between emotion regulation and academic performance, and the relationship between emotion regulation and physical functioning, the study design was inadequate, and variables such as frequency of physical activity and specific content of physical activity were not incorporated, so the results of the study were limited, but the direction of the study was indicated.
