Relation of the practice of physical activity and the academic performance in students of Santiago of Chile

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Fernando Maureira Cid Ianice Díaz Mallea Pía Foos Espuña Camilo Ibañez Alarcón Danilo Molina Carrión Francisco Aravena Muñoz Cristóbal Bustos Sepúlveda Miguel Barra Menares

Abstract

Numerous researchers have studied the relation between the practice of physical activity and improvement in diverse cognitive functions such as attention and learning. The objective of the present study was to determine if the practice of physical activity has an influence of on academic performance in mathematics, language, history and sciences. 309 secondary education students at two schools of Santiago, Chile, were evaluated. The results show a relation between the number of weekdays of physical activity and performance in mathematics (p=0.003), but not in language (p=0.752), history (p=0.129) or sciences (p=0.100). The results also show a relation between the weekly duration of physical activity and mathematics (r = 0.173, p=0.000), as well as the average marks of the four subject (r=0.119, p=0.036). The relation between the practice of physical activity and academic performance in mathematics is possible due to executive cerebral functions, which are fundamental in learning processes and in motor execution and which possess shared elements with the solution of abstract mathematical problems.



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References

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How to Cite
Maureira Cid, F., Díaz Mallea, I., Foos Espuña, P., Ibañez Alarcón, C., Molina Carrión, D., Aravena Muñoz, F., Bustos Sepúlveda, C., & Barra Menares, M. (2014). Relation of the practice of physical activity and the academic performance in students of Santiago of Chile. Revista Ciencias De La Actividad Física UCM, 15(1), 43-50. Retrieved from http://200.9.234.116/index.php/revistacaf/article/view/40