Regular Exercise Helps Improve Cognitive Skills and Executive Function, Study Says

According to recent research, regular exercise for students while studying boosts their examination grades in both math and French and develops their overall cognitive and executive function.

Understanding the Link Between Physical Fitness and Exam Scores

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To better understand how fitness influences learning, researchers from the University of Geneva tested the activity levels and education of 193 students aged 8 to 12. After combining the results of fitness and the students' exam results, researchers found a link between improved cardiorespiratory fitness and higher exam results in French grammar and mathematics. On the other hand, researchers say that the link is indirect since physical fitness improves executive function and cognitive skills that, in turn, helps students rely on specific and structured answers like math.

Researchers say that schools and administrators should consider the role of exercise and movement when planning timetables and budget allocation.

Charles Hillman, the co-author of the study and a professor at the Northeastern University of Boston, had previous studies on the relationship between cardiorespiratory fitness and students' academic performance and its benefits on executive functions.

Marc Yanguez, a researcher at the University of Geneva, explains three main executive functions. The first is inhibition, which is a person's ability to inhibit irrelevant and intrusive thoughts or behaviors. Second is cognitive flexibility, or multitasking that refers to a person's ability to move between tasks and demands. Finally, the third is working memory, or a person's ability to retain information and manipulate it, reports DailyMail.

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Physical Fitness and Cognitive Function Analysis

To better understand the relationship between physical fitness and academic skills for their study published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, titled "The Indirect Role of Executive Functions on the Relationship between Cardiorespiratory Fitness and School Grades," authors partnered with eight schools in Switzerland.

The participating schools involved physical and cognitive tests for 196 students aged 8 to 12.

Students took physical tests known as the 'shuttle run test' where they ran back and forth between two 20-meter lines at an increasing pace. Combined with age, sex, height, and weight, the tests allowed researchers to assess the student's cardiovascular fitness, explained Yanguez.

Then nine tasks were used to assess the children's cognitive flexibility, inhibition, and working memory. Julien Chanal, co-author of the study, explains that the team measured various indications such as the speed of the student's responses and precision. One of the inhibition tests showed that students' images of fish swimming had the central fish going in the same or opposite direction as the main group.

Psychologists saw a relationship between improved cardiorespiratory fitness and higher exam marks in French and mathematics. Demonstrating the relationship between physical capacities, cognitive abilities, and grades underlines the significance of not reducing physical activity in favor of other school subjects.

This could ultimately have negative implications on the overall development of children, explains Yanguez. Additionally, the study challenges the idea of forcing children to spend more time studying to succeed at school.