Physical activity and academic performance in students from same primary education school

Background and Study Aim Recent researches has demonstrated the relationship between physical activity levels and academic performance in schoolchildren. Most of them have sampled students from different schools and cities. Sometimes academic performance was influenced by other factors such as the type of teaching, the teaching staff or, for example, the assessment system. This research has tried to associate the practice of out-of-school physical activity with academic performance in a group of students, with the peculiarity that they all belonged to same Elementary school. Material and Methods 120 students (67 boys and 53 girls), aged between 8 and 12 years, participated in this study once their parents or guardians were informed about the characteristics of the study. Academic performance was calculated from the average grades provided by their teachers in the first term. Physical activity levels were calculated using the APALQ questionnaire, categorising students into two types: active or sedentary. In the presence of a normal distribution, the difference between groups was obtained using Chi-Square and Student's t-test. In those cases where the distribution was not normal, comparison was carried out using the Mann Withney U. Results The analysis of results showed that active students obtained significantly higher grades than sedentary students (8.15 +/- 1.17 vs. 7.35 +/- 1.15; p=0.042). This circumstance is maintained when analysing the results according to the students' gender, although it is only significant in the case of girls (8.08 +/- 1.22 vs 7.03 +/- 0.87; p=0.036). Conclusions The practice of physical activity during non-school hours had a positive influence on the academic performance of the students analysed, even though they were from the same school.