Faculty of Nursing, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Cuenca, Spain.
Health and Social Research Center, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Cuenca, Spain.
PLoS One. 2020 Apr 10;15(4):e0231246. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0231246. eCollection 2020.
Previous research has studied the influence of physical fitness on academic achievement through executive functions. However, the nature of this relationship remains unclear. This study aimed to analyze how cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and executive functions are associated with academic achievement and to examine whether the relationship between CRF and academic achievement is mediated by executive functions in schoolchildren.
This was a cross-sectional study including 570 schoolchildren, aged 8 to 11 years, from Cuenca, Spain. Data were collected from September to October 2017. Sociodemographic variables, family socioeconomic status, pubertal status, academic achievement, CRF (20-meter shuttle run test) and executive functions (inhibition, cognitive flexibility and working memory, NIH Toolbox battery in Spanish, v 1.8; iPad Pro, Apple, Inc.) were measured.
Overall, ANCOVA models controlling for age, gender and mother educational level showed higher scores in language and mathematics in children in higher categories of CRF, inhibition, cognitive flexibility and working memory than in children in lower categories. The effect sizes were moderate (p < 0.05, partial eta squared: from 0.05 to 0.12). Moreover, the mediation analysis showed that inhibition partially mediated the relationship between CRF and language (c' = 0.058; IC = [0.005; 0.028]) and mathematics (c' = 0.064; IC = [0.005; 0.030]) grades. Similarly, cognitive flexibility mediated CRF's relationship with language (c' = 0.059; IC = [0.003; 0.028]) and with mathematics (c' = 0.066; IC = [0.003; 0.029]); however, a significant relationship remained. For working memory, mediation analysis showed no significant results (c' = 0.92; IC = [-0.002;0.025] P > 0.05 in language; c' = 0.103; IC = [-0.002;0.029] P > 0.05 in mathematics). Mediation ranged from 13.38% to 36%.
Children in higher categories of both CRF and executive function showed higher grades in mathematics and language. The findings indicated that a significant proportion of the positive influence of CRF on academic achievement was mediated by improvements in inhibition and cognitive flexibility. Thus, this study supports the hypothesis that improvements in CRF may contribute to increasing academic achievement not only through a direct mechanism but also through improvements in executive functions.
先前的研究通过执行功能研究了身体健康对学业成绩的影响。然而，这种关系的性质尚不清楚。本研究旨在分析心肺适能（CRF）和执行功能与学业成绩的关系，并检验 CRF 与学业成绩之间的关系是否通过儿童的执行功能来介导。
这是一项横断面研究，纳入了来自西班牙昆卡的 570 名 8 至 11 岁的学龄儿童。数据于 2017 年 9 月至 10 月收集。测量了社会人口统计学变量、家庭社会经济地位、青春期状态、学业成绩、CRF（20 米穿梭跑测试）和执行功能（抑制、认知灵活性和工作记忆、NIH 工具包电池西班牙语版，v 1.8；iPad Pro，Apple，Inc.）。
总体而言，控制年龄、性别和母亲教育水平的协方差分析模型显示，CRF、抑制、认知灵活性和工作记忆水平较高的儿童在语言和数学方面的得分高于 CRF、抑制、认知灵活性和工作记忆水平较低的儿童。效应量为中等（p<0.05，部分 eta 平方：0.05 至 0.12）。此外，中介分析表明，抑制部分介导了 CRF 与语言（c'=0.058；IC=[0.005；0.028]）和数学（c'=0.064；IC=[0.005；0.030]）成绩之间的关系。同样，认知灵活性介导了 CRF 与语言（c'=0.059；IC=[0.003；0.028]）和数学（c'=0.066；IC=[0.003；0.029]）成绩之间的关系，但仍存在显著关系。对于工作记忆，中介分析显示无显著结果（c'=0.92；IC=[-0.002；0.025]，p>0.05，语言；c'=0.103；IC=[-0.002；0.029]，p>0.05，数学）。中介作用的范围为 13.38%至 36%。
心肺适能和执行功能水平较高的儿童在数学和语言方面的成绩更高。研究结果表明，CRF 对学业成绩的积极影响有相当大的比例是通过抑制和认知灵活性的提高来介导的。因此，本研究支持这样一种假设，即 CRF 的提高不仅可以通过直接机制，还可以通过提高执行功能来提高学业成绩。
