Encarnação Samuel, Teixeira José Eduardo, Forte Pedro, Leite Luciano Bernardes, Sortwell Andrew, Branquinho Luís, Ferraz Ricardo, Afonso Pedro, Vaz Paula, Monteiro António Miguel
Department of Sports Sciences and Physical Education, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Bragança, Portugal.
Department of Physical Education, Sport and Human Movement, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM), Ciudad Universitaria de Cantoblanco, Madrid, Spain.
Front Sports Act Living. 2025 Jul 7;7:1509959. doi: 10.3389/fspor.2025.1509959. eCollection 2025.
The relationship between physical activity and anxiety among students has been extensively studied, with research highlighting the protective effects of physical activity on mental well-being.
This article synthesizes existing literature on the topic and presents a novel analysis of pre-exam anxiety rates among physically inactive high school students from 56 countries. Using data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018, a hierarchical clustering method was applied to identify four clusters based on stratified country groups by the students' pre-exam anxiety levels.
The results indicated five clusters for low physically active students (three with higher anxiety rates and two with lower levels of the condition) and four clusters for the low physically active individuals (two for higher anxiety rates and two for lower levels). Furthermore, the hierarchical model worked with good precision in the clustering task. In conclusion, considering the low physically active students, Brazil (82%) and the Dominican Republic (81%) recorded the highest pre-exam anxiety levels, while the Czech Republic (35%) had the lowest. Among the physically active students, Malaysia (82%), Brazil (81%), and Costa Rica (81%) recorded the highest anxiety levels, whereas again, the Czech Republic (35%) had the lowest.
These findings emphasize that although physical activity generally relates to reduced anxiety, this association varies across cultural and educational contexts.
体育活动与学生焦虑之间的关系已得到广泛研究，研究强调了体育活动对心理健康的保护作用。
本文综合了关于该主题的现有文献，并对来自56个国家的缺乏体育活动的高中生考试前焦虑率进行了新颖的分析。利用2018年国际学生评估项目（PISA）的数据，采用分层聚类方法，根据学生考试前焦虑水平对国家组进行分层，确定了四个聚类。
结果表明，缺乏体育活动的学生分为五个聚类（三个聚类的焦虑率较高，两个聚类的焦虑水平较低），缺乏体育活动的个体分为四个聚类（两个聚类的焦虑率较高，两个聚类的焦虑水平较低）。此外，分层模型在聚类任务中具有良好的精度。总之，在缺乏体育活动的学生中，巴西（82%）和多米尼加共和国（81%）的考试前焦虑水平最高，而捷克共和国（35%）最低。在经常参加体育活动的学生中，马来西亚（82%）、巴西（81%）和哥斯达黎加（81%）的焦虑水平最高，同样，捷克共和国（35%）最低。
这些发现强调，尽管体育活动通常与焦虑减轻有关，但这种关联在不同文化和教育背景下存在差异。
