Sporty pupils ‘more self-controlled’ according to study
Children who do more physical activity are likely to have stronger self-control, a study suggests.
This can in turn affect academic achievement, according to researchers at Cambridge University’s Faculty of Education.
The study’s authors suggest that giving every child the opportunity to take part in certain types of physical activity, like swimming and ball sports, could help close the achievement gap between the wealthy and the less advantaged.
They analysed data from more than 4,000 children in England captured at three stages during childhood and adolescence: ages seven, 11 and 14.
This subset of data covering pupils’ physical activity came from the Millennium Cohort Study, which is following the lives of about 19,000 young people born between 2000 and 2002 in the UK.
Research indicated that the pattern of physical activity indirectly influencing progress at school, by boosting self-control, was particularly pronounced among disadvantaged children.
This may in part be because less-advantaged children often have fewer opportunities to participate in organised recreation and sports, and therefore experience stronger benefits when they do so, according to the study’s authors.
