Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Department of Psychological Sciences, University of London, London, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2021 May 19;16(5):e0250984. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0250984. eCollection 2021.
It is common knowledge that physical activity leads to physiological and psychological benefits. The current study explored the association between physical activity and self-regulation longitudinally and the indirect relationship this may have on academic achievement, using secondary data on primary and secondary school children from the Millennium Cohort Study, a cohort of infants born in 2000-2001 in the United Kingdom. There are two main findings. First, there is a positive link between physical activity and emotional (not behavioural) regulation both concurrently and longitudinally across all three time points, 7-years-old, 11-years-old and 14-years-old. The relationship was negative for emotional regulation and negligible for behavioural regulation when controlling for socioeconomic status. Second, across two time points (due to data availability), physical activity positively predicted academic achievement through emotional regulation for 7-year-olds and behavioural regulation in 11-year-olds. The impact of this relationship was more pronounced when controlling for socioeconomic status. Together these findings indicate that emotional regulation is linked to physical activity in early childhood. Subsequently, emotion regulation predicts academic attainment, suggesting that early interventions might focus on attention rather than behaviour.
众所周知,身体活动对生理和心理健康都有好处。本研究使用来自英国千年队列研究的小学生和中学生的二次数据,纵向探讨了身体活动与自我调节之间的关系,以及这可能对学业成绩产生的间接影响。主要有两个发现。第一,在所有三个时间点(7 岁、11 岁和 14 岁),身体活动与情绪(而非行为)调节都存在正向的同时和纵向关联。在控制社会经济地位后,这种关系在情绪调节上为负,在行为调节上可以忽略不计。第二,在两个时间点(由于数据可用性),身体活动通过 7 岁时的情绪调节和 11 岁时的行为调节对学业成绩产生积极预测。在控制社会经济地位后,这种关系的影响更为显著。这些发现表明,情绪调节与儿童早期的身体活动有关。随后,情绪调节预测学业成绩,这表明早期干预可能更注重注意力而不是行为。