Exploring the relationship between cognitively demanding physical activities, mood, attention, and behaviour among primary aged students : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand
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2023
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Massey University
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Objective: Acute bouts of physical activity (PA) have shown positive effects on children’s cognitive, behavioural, and socio-emotional development. However, the impact of differing levels of cognitive demand (CD) during physical activity remains unclear. This study aimed to explore how the combined and/or separate effects of physical activity and cognitive demand affect mood, attention, and behaviour of children. Design: In a 2x 2 within-subjects experimental design, 24 children experienced four school-based conditions consisting of physical activity interventions which varied in physical exertion (high PA vs. low PA) and cognitive demand (high CD vs. low CD). Methods: The variables, mood, attention, and behaviour were measured before and immediately after each of the 25-30 minute interventions. A self-reported measure (AAPE) and classroom observations (DOF) were used to investigate whether change to these variables was due to the main effect of PA or CD or an interaction of both, ANOVAs were conducted for each intervention. Results: Compared to baseline data, all four conditions were significant in improving mood, time on task, and reducing negative behaviour. Interaction effects were found for PA and CD in mood, time on-task, and behaviour. Contrary, to the hypotheses, higher cognitive demand without PA showed the most improvement in mood and behaviour. Conclusions: The results indicate that short breaks from learning that include either physical activity, cognitive demand, or a combination of both improve mood, attention and reduce negative behaviours that can affect peers and individuals from learning in the classroom. Future research should continue to expand on these findings by investigating how these variables are affected over the day, completing these conditions over time (e.g. 6 -8 weeks), develop a measure that clearly defines CD, consider age differences, and include measures that assess how academic learning is directly affected. The findings here are promising in that children benefitted from all the interventions after only one session, thereby providing further justification for increasing daily opportunities for physical activities that also consider the level of cognitive demand for children.