Students’ fitness and their academic achievement Essay Example for Free

Students seaworthiness and their academic transaction EssayRunning Head treatment Investigations into the relationship betwixt academic consummation and fleshly seaworthiness have produced mixed results. Weber (1983) correlated seaworthiness, using the Iowa somatogenetic Proficiency Profile (including sit-ups, pull-ups, running), to entrance exam tally and grade point averages for 246 manlike college students. Fitness level had a solid positive relationship with grade point average (r = . 41), that did not relate to execution of instrument rack up on entrance exams.Hart and Shay (1994) examined mathematics and oral SAT scores and the Physical Fitness Index in 60 college women. When the relationships mingled with verbal scores and mathematics scores and fittingness index were examined, the r values were . 068 and . 146, respectively, although neither was meaningful at the . 05 level. A battery of fitness tests (e. g. , flexed arm hang, curl-ups, and step test) wer e administered to 827 female freshmen and subjects were placed in one of three categories of fitness gritty, fair or poor (Arnett, 1988).Arnett (1988) found significant differences in grade point average between the groups, with participants with higher(prenominal)(prenominal) fitness levels having higher GPAs. Using various academic measures and fitness measures on school-aged children, studies have alike resulted in inconsistent findings. Clarke and Jarman (1991), examining 217 boys (aged 9, 12 and 15), found that there was a consistent, and for some fitness measures, a significant tendency for the students in the high fitness group to have higher means on some(prenominal) standard achievement tests and grade point average.Current studies have used standardized achievement and fitness tests as measures. A drive involving 1,767 students in second, fourth and vith grades examined the relationship between performance on the Georgia Criterion Referenced Test for Reading, Mathemat ics and Career Education and performance on a variety of carnal fitness tests from the Minnesota Performance Test, the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and bounce (AAHPERD) Health Related Physical Fitness Tests, and the Texas Physical Fitness-Motor Ability Test (Harris Jones, 1982).For the boys and girls, multiple regression summary demonstrated a low, but significant, relationship between reading and mathematics ability and the combination of eight motor performance measures examined, five of which were fitness measures. Winn (1993) studied 302 fourth and fifth grade children and examined the relationship between scores on the California Test of Basic Skills (reading, mathematics) and performance on the AAHPERD Presidents Challenge. Using national norms, measure fitness and total academic achievement scores were determined.The overall correlation between the total scores was . 213. When each test item was correlated with scores in each of reading, mathematics and language, the correlations ranged from . 043 to . 462, although none of the correlations were significant at the . 05 level. An examination of 7,961 youngsters from 7 to 15 long time of age in Australia was conducted by Dwyer, Sallis, Blizzard, Lazarus and Dean (2001). instruct ratings of scholastic ability were compared with performance on a variety of fitness measures including sit-ups, push-ups, and a 1.6 kilometer run. crossways the age groups, there were significant, but weak, correlations (ranging from. 1 to . 27) between fitness (cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular force and power) and academic performance. almost recently, the California incision of Education (2002 2005) reported the results of two studies that examined the relationship between scores on achievement tests and the Fitnessgram. In the first study, performance on the Stanford Achievement Tests and scores on the Fitnessgram for 884,715 students in grades 5, 7, and 9 were investigated.A comp osite score, ranging from zero to six, was created for physical fitness, in which a student obtained one point for each of the six test items for which the student was determined to be in the healthy zone. In each of the three grades, higher levels of fitness were related to higher academic achievement. The relationship was stronger for math achievement and fitness, especially at higher fitness levels. This study has yet to be published. As a result, no statistical measures are available.Nevertheless(prenominal), the results were cited by professional sources, such as the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (no date) and the PE Central tissue site (no date) as evidence that there is a direct relationship between physical fitness levels and academic achievement. In the latter study (California Department of Education, 2005), performance on the California Standards Tests and the Fitnessgram for 1,036,386 students in grades 5, 7 and 9 were compared.Again in this stu dy, students were awarded a composite score, representing the number of fitness test battery items in which they were in the healthy zone. Results were similar to the 2002 study, with higher fitness scores associated with higher scores in English-language humanities and mathematics (p . 05). In this study (California Department of Education, 2005), however, only means were reported thus, no standard deviations were prone for the groups compared, nor were make size measures made to quantify the practical significance of the differences observed between groups.Conclusion In summary, research examining the relationship between academic achievement and physical fitness has produced mixed results. Of these, one study has been published only as a press release in which no statistical analytic thinking was reported and a second study had incomplete statistical information to effectively interpret the results (California Department of Education, 2002 2005). In the remaining investigat ions the interpretation of the results focused on whether a statistically significant finding was observed.A number of statistical researchers, however, have emphasized that the correct interpretation of research results requires that not only the statistical significance of the data be considered, but also the practical significance of the findings (Sterne Smith, 2001 Thomas, Salazar Landers, 1991 Vincent, 1999). This is particularly important in studies such as the present one, and the ones discussed above, which typically involve very large sample sizes of hundreds to hundreds of thousands of subjects.Due to the effect of sample size on the calculation of statistical significance, with large sample sizes it is possible to calculate statistical significance on a result that has no practical significance (Vincent, 1999). As evidenced by the history of investigations, the importance of understanding the relationship between physical fitness and academic performance in children and offspring is relevant, and increased by recent evidence from studies conducted on animals and elderly humans that increased physical activity results in improved cognitive function (Colcombe et al., 2004 2004 Rhodes et al. , 2003).References Almond, L. , McGeorge, S. (1998). Physical activity and academic performance. British daybook of Physical Education, 29(2), 8-12. Arnett, C. (1988). Interrelationships between selected physical variables and academic achievement of college women.Research Quarterly, 39, 227-230. Clarke, H. , Jarman, B. O. (1991). Scholastic achievement of boys 9, 12, and 15 years of age as related to various strength and growth measures. Research Quarterly, 32, 155-162. Colcombe, S. J. , Kramer, A. F. , Erickson, K. I. , Scalf, P., McAuley, E. , Cohen, N. J. , et al. (2004). Cardiovascular fitness, cortical plasticity, and aging. transactions of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 101, 3316-3321 Creswell, J. W. (2002). Educational research.Planning, cond ucting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. Upper Saddle River, N J Merrill prentice Hall Dustman, R. E. , Emmerson, R. , Shearer, D. (1994). Physical activity, age and cognitive function. Journal of Aging and Physical Activity, 2, 143-181. Dwyer, T. , Sallis, J. F. , Blizzard, L. , Lazarus, R. , Dean, K. (2001).Relation of academic performance to physical activity and fitness in children. Pediatric Exercise Science, 13,225-237. Fraenkel, J. R. , Wallen, N. E. (2003). How to design and evaluate research in education (5th ed. ). Boston McGraw Hill. Harris, D. I. , Jones, M. A. (1982). Reading, math and motor performance. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, 53(9), 21-22. Hart, M. E. , Shay, C. T. (1994). Relationship between physical fitness and academic success. Research Quarterly, 35, 443-445 Hopkins, W. G. (2001). New view of statistics Effect magnitudes.Retrieved July 10, 2004 McAuley, E. , Kramer, A. F. , Colcombe, S. J. (2004). Cardiovas cular fitness and neurocognitive function in older adults A brief review. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 18, 214-220 National Association for Sport and Physical Education. (2002). 2001 Shape of the nation report. Reston, VA Author. nutrition and physical activity. Overweight and obesity.. Retrieved July 15, 2004 Ogden, C. L. , Flegal, K. M. , Carroll, M. D. , Johnson, C. L. (2002). Prevalence and trends in overweight among U. S. children and adolescents, 1999-2000. Journal of the American Medical Association, 288, 17281732.Presidents Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. (1992). Normative data from the 1985 school population fitness survey for use with the presidents challenge youth physical fitness program. Washington, DC U. S. Government Printing Office. Plato, The republic,Book III, 412A-B. Translated by Conford, 1945, pp. 101-102 Rhodes, J. S. , van Praag, H. , Jeffrey, S. , Girard, I. , Mitchell, G. S. , Garland, T. Jr. , et al. (2003). Exercise increases hippocampal neurog enesis to high levels but does not improve spatial learning in mice bred for increased voluntary wheel running.behavioural Neuroscience, 117, 10061016. Sterne, J. A. C. , Smith, G. D. (2001). Sifting the evidence whats wrong with significance tests? British Medical Journal, 322, 226-231. Symons, C. W. , Cinelli, B. , James, T. C. , Groff, P. (1997). Bridging student health risks and academic achievement through comprehensive school health programs. Journal of School Health, 76, 220-227. Thomas, J. R. , Salazar, W. , Landers, D. M. (1991). What is missing in p is less than .05? Effect size. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 62(3), 344-348.Vannier, M. , Poindexter, H. B. (1964). Physical activities for college women. Philadephia W. B. Saunders. Vincent, W. J. (1999). Statistics in kinesiology. Champaign, IL Human Kinetics. Weber, J. R. (1983). Relationship of physical fitness to success in college and to . rsonality. Research Quarterly, 24, 471-474. Winn, K. L. (1993). A study of the relationship between physical fitness levels and the academic achievement of fourth and fifth grade students. Unpublished masters thesis, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA.