Acute Effects of Aerobic Physical Activities on Attention and Concentration in School-aged Children
Journal Title: Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research (BJSTR) - Year 2017, Vol 1, Issue 5
Abstract
Purpose: It is unknown whether or not a PA intervention can produce positive effects on students’ attention and concentration late in the school day (i.e., afternoon). Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the acute effect of 30-min PE lessons on students’ attention and concentration late in the school day. Methods: A total of 115 fourth- and fifth-grade students participated in this study with the mean age of 9.41 years old for fourth grade students (n=58) and 10.41 years old for fifth-grade students (n=57). One fourth-grade class and one fifth-grade class were randomly assigned to the intervention group, while the other one fourth-grade class and the other fifth-grade class were randomly assigned to the comparison group. The intervention took place after all classes attended a 30-min regular late afternoon academic lesson. The intervention students took the d2 Test of Attention before and after attending a 30-min aerobic PA-focused PE lesson, while the comparison students took the d2 Test of Attention before and after attending a 30-min lecture-typed PE lesson. The d2 Test is standardized paper and pencil letter-cancellation test that measures neuropsychology performance of the students in the areas of sustained and selective attention as well as concentration. Results: 2 (pre-test vs. post-test) x 2 (Experimental Group vs. Comparison Group) ANOVA revealed a significant effect of time, but no significant effect of group for processing speed (TN), accuracy (E%), and concentration (CP). Further, the repeated measures ANOVA indicated that there was no significant interaction between time × group in TN and E%, but there was a significant level of the time x group intervention in CP, close to p< .05. Conclusion: It was concluded that after participating in both the 30-min aerobic PA-focused PE lesson and the 30-min interactive lecturetyped PE lesson late in the school day, the students had greater improvement in attention and concentration, compared to after attending the 30-min regular academic lesson. A growing body of studies has shown positive effects of physical activity (PA) on attention and concentration in school-aged children [1-9]. Attention is defined as the ability to resist distractions and concentration is referred to the ability to stay focused [5,10,11]. Attention and concentration are key to cognitive processes such as encoding, recalling, information processing, and problem solving. Therefore, attention and concentration play essential roles in successful academic performance [11-17]. However; children are sitting in the classroom for prolonged periods of academic instructions from morning to afternoon during a school day. Especially, the prolonged sedentary lifestyle reduces students’ attention to academic instructions and concentration on task engagement [11,15,18]. To address this critical issue, investigating the acute effects of PA on increasing attention and concentration in school-aged children has been of great interest in school settings. Empirical studies have examined the acute effects of a single bout of different types, durations, and intensities of PA on attention and concentration performance in school-aged children [1-10]. In a systematic review of 12 studies in acute effects of a single bout of PA on children’s attention in the laboratory and the school settings, four out of seven studies showed that aerobic PA was positively associated with attention and concentration [11]. Supporting that, a study by Tine and Butler [8] examined the acute effects of a 12- min single bout of aerobic exercises on attention and concentration in 164 students aged 10-13. The results indicated that both lowerincome and higher-income students in the intervention group showed significant higher performance in selective attention than the control group who were sitting while watching 12-min film clip [8]. Also, the other study investigated the acute effects of a 50-min aerobic exercise PE lesson with moderate-to-vigorous intensity and a 50-min coordinated ball skills PE lesson with the same intensity on 3-5 grade students’ attention and concentration performance in d2 test, compared to a 50-min regular academic lesson [1]. The results indicated that the students who took aerobic exercise PE lesson and an academic lesson showed a significant higher attention performance from pre-test to post-test than the students who took the coordinated ball skills PE lesson, which had less improvement.1 However, it was unknown when the varying types of the exertions took place across a school time [1].
Authors and Affiliations
Weiyun Chen, Zhanjia Zhang, Brooke Callaghan, Lexi La Chappa, Morgan Chen, Zhonghui He
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP581056
- DOI 10.26717/BJSTR.2017.01.000456
- Views 178
- Downloads 0
Trust Me I’M A Doctor…. Working towards a Healthy Prescriptive Consent According to Decision Theory
The consent process is a complex relationship between rational cognitive thinking and emotional processes [1] (page 62) that can alter the choices that are being made and can shape probabilities of outcomes [2]. The pati...
Cerebral Metastases as First Clinical Manifestation of Ovarian/Fallopian Tube Carcinoma
Cerebral metastases from ovarian/fallopian tube carcinoma, rare and highly dismal events, develop usually in patients with prolonged survival. There are only several reports on cancers in which brain involvements are pre...
Implementing Instructional Supervision by an Operating Room Assistant to Reduce Turnover Time
Background: Turnover time is still not negligible in ensuring efficient operating room(OR) management. A prospective study was performed to evaluate the effect of instructional supervision by an OR assistant on reducing...
How Good is Your Estuarine Water?
The coastal and estuarine zone of West Bengal is noted for its rich biodiversity owing to the presence of Sundarbans mangrove ecosystem. However, due to intense industrialization and urbanization, many of the pockets hav...
Matrigel® as 3D culture medium: 2D vs. 3D changes in proliferation and ultrastructure
3D cell culture has great potential in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Three- dimensional ECM-like substances such as Matrigel® mimic natural proteins found in the ECM and result in a more accu...