MedTrace Logo

Effects of Physical Activity on Math - an RCT

NCT02488460 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 545

Last updated 2015-07-02

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Background

Increased physical activity can improve cognition and academic skills. However due to economic concerns and increasing focus on standardized testing, PA in schools often receives little attention and physical education is reduced in many countries in favor of spending more time devoted to academic classes. This tendency is not compatible with the increasing evidence for the association between physical activity, fitness, cognitive and academic performance.

Despite increasing evidence for the association between PA, fitness, cognitive and academic performance, very few longitudinal high-quality studies exists examining the effect of physical activity on academic performance (ref.). Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge only two studies have assessed academic outcomes following the integration of physical activity into the classroom with intervention participants scoring significantly higher in test sections compared to controls which makes generalizing from these results challenging.

To promote policy changes that require more physical activity in school, empirical data are needed to study the effects of school-based physical activity programs. Therefore the investigators carried out a cluster randomized controlled trial conducted to examine the effect on math achievement and executive functions of classroom based PA in math.

Conditions

  • Academic Acheivement
  • Physical Activity

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Physically active math lessons

The intervention consists of a nine month period with physical activity as part of, and integrated, in math lessons

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • IMK Fonden

    collaborator OTHER

  • University of Southern Denmark

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Mona H. Sørensen, PhD Fellow · University of Southern Denmark

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
SINGLE
Model
FACTORIAL

Eligibility

Min Age
6 Years
Max Age
8 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2012-08-31
Primary Completion
2013-07-31
Completion
2013-07-31

More Related Trials

Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT02488460 on ClinicalTrials.gov