Premium
Effects of different types of classroom physical activity breaks on children’s on‐task behaviour, academic achievement and cognition
Author(s) -
Mavilidi Myrto F.,
Drew Ryan,
Morgan Philip J.,
Lubans David R.,
Schmidt Mirko,
Riley Nicholas
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
acta paediatrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1651-2227
pISSN - 0803-5253
DOI - 10.1111/apa.14892
Subject(s) - physical activity , cognition , curriculum , task (project management) , medicine , control (management) , mathematics education , developmental psychology , psychology , physical therapy , pedagogy , computer science , management , artificial intelligence , psychiatry , economics
Abstract Aim This study examined the effects of different types of classroom physical activity breaks on children’s on‐task behaviour, academic achievement and cognition. Methods Participants were 87 Australian primary school students (mean age 9.11 ± 0.62 years), recruited from one school. Three classes were randomly assigned either to activity breaks only (n = 29), activity breaks and mathematics combined (n = 29), or control conditions involving only mathematical content (n = 29). Students were engaged in five minutes of classroom physical activity breaks, three times per week, for four weeks (divided into two minutes at the beginning of the usual mathematics curriculum lesson and three minutes in the middle of the lesson). Assessments were conducted at baseline and post‐test. Results Significant group‐by‐time effects were found for on‐task behaviour (active engagement: activity breaks and mathematics combined versus control, p ≤ 0.001; activity breaks versus control, p ≤ 0.001; activity breaks and mathematics combined versus activity breaks, p = 0.037; passive engagement: activity breaks and mathematics combined versus control, p ≤ 0.001) and mathematics scores (activity breaks versus control, p = 0.045). Conclusion Physical activity breaks with and without integrated mathematics content were effective in improving children’s on‐task behaviour and learning scores.