Browsing by Author "Eira, Emma"

Objectives; The aim of this Bachelor’s thesis was to compile information on the association between physical activity and academic performance in primary school children from previous studies. The connection between physical activity and academic performance has attracted a great deal of interest and has been studied extensively. Previous studies have found a positive association between physical activity and academic performance. However, the results have been contradictory and the ositive link between physical activity and academic performance has not been found in all of the studies. The purpose of this study was to answer the following research questions 1) Is there a connection between physical activity and academic performance? 2) What kind of physical activity supports academic performance? Methods: Bachelor thesis was executed as a systematic literature review. The research material consisted of nine articles that studied the connection between physical activity and academic performance in primary school children. The material was collected in three differ-ent literature searches from library of the University of Helsinki’s Helka database. The stud-ies were grouped into longitudinal and cross-sectional studies, to studies that examine phys-ical fitness, motor skills, physical activity during school hours and during leisure time. Ana-lyze was carried out as a content analysis. I emphasized main findings by highlighting them in the text and created a table to illustrate most important findings according to the research questions. The results formed in relation with the research questions through the analysis. Results and Conclusions: The majority of studies showed that there is a positive association between physical activity and academic achievement. These results showed that especially good physical fitness and short physically active breaks during school day support learning outcomes. For further research, we would be interested to investigate whether the effects of physical activity are as positive for children of high school age as for primary school children.