Effects of physical activity interventions on cognitive and academic performance in children and adolescents: a novel combination of a systematic review and recommendations from an expert panel
Singh AS, Saliasi E, van den Berg V, Uijtdewilligen L, de Groot RHM, Jolles J, Andersen LB, Bailey R, Chang YK, Diamond A, Ericsson I, Etnier JL, Fedewa AL, Hillman CH, McMorris T, Pesce C, Puhse U, Tomporowski PD, Chinapaw MJM · 2019
grade Creviewindependentnot-applicable
Sample
58 intervention studies screened; only 11 (19%) rated high methodological quality; conclusions drawn from those 11
Population
Children and adolescents in physical-activity intervention studies
Design
PRISMA systematic review with explicit methodological-quality rating, plus an international expert panel (19 authors, including most of the field's principal investigators) that formulated research priorities. PROSPERO CRD42017082505. Graded C — it is a vote-count synthesis over a mixed-quality corpus, not a bias-corrected pooled estimate, and the expert panel is opinion, not evidence.
Key findings
The field's own consensus review says the evidence is inconclusive, which is the most important thing in it. Only 11 of 58 studies (19%) were rated high quality. Among those, benefits appeared in 10 of 21 (48%) cognitive constructs and 15 of 25 (60%) academic analyses — coin-flip vote counts. The headline positive claim, "strong evidence for beneficial effects of PA on maths performance", rests on 6 of 7 outcomes across just FIVE studies, which is a small-corpus vote count with no bias correction and no effect size attached. The panel itself named causality as the most pressing unresolved question, and the review conclusion is "inconclusive evidence for the beneficial effects of PA interventions on cognitive and overall academic performance."
Genetic confound
Restricted to intervention studies, so genetic confounding of the treatment contrast is not the issue; the issue is that 81% of the corpus was too weak to use.
Effects
| Outcome | Metric | Value | Measure | Timing | Vs | Horizon | Class |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Corpus quality | share rated high methodological quality | 11 of 58 studies (19%) | standardized | across corpus | none | not-applicable | domain-skill |
| Cognitive performance (high-quality studies) | vote count of significant beneficial effects | 10 of 21 constructs (48%) | standardized | end of intervention | business-as-usual | end-of-treatment | far-transfer |
| Academic performance (high-quality studies) | vote count of significant beneficial effects | 15 of 25 analyses (60%) | mixed | end of intervention | business-as-usual | end-of-treatment | domain-skill |
| Mathematics performance | vote count | 6 of 7 outcomes beneficial, across 5 studies — the basis of the "strong evidence for maths" claim | mixed | end of intervention | business-as-usual | end-of-treatment | domain-skill |
Cited by
- Physical activity as an input — dose, fitness, and school outcomesno effectconf: mediumgc: low