How Involvement in Sports Boosts Academic Performance
This research topic grew out of an intensive study that examines how school students navigate academic barriers of achievement and success. In this project, I analyze a variety of ways in which sports and other extracurricular activities play a crucial role in enabling young people in schools reach greater heights of academic excellence. At the beginning, it was clear that sport was a milestone to the achievement of higher grades to most students proving to be a support structure of success. However, as it will be examined in this article, sport has been proven to be a tool of promoting academic work. I have reviewed various research bodies that expound more on the correlation of sports to students’ academic excellence. The results have been critically analyzed to indicate the importance of physical exercises to learners.
The results of the studies conducted by scholars serve to enlighten many ways of benefits of child’s involvement in physical activities. Lastly, I draw a conclusion and encourage schools to advise their students to join sports for the overall performance of the institution. Excellence in academics among students in high school has been a major concern for researchers, parents and lecturers. Nevertheless, the inactive lifestyle of most students and young individuals is taking a toll on their health, resulting into a worrying number of them contracting fatal diseases, such as cardio respiratory illness among others. High school students have massively abandoned sports and other extracurricular activities. The lack of time to engage in such activities is the main cause, as pointed out by most students. Physical activities such as sports make a tremendous difference in improving students’ academic grades. The involvement makes a student active in all the activities possessing the ability to manage his or her time well.
Studies and researches have been carried out to investigate the significance of involvement in sports among students. A study of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) examined how academic performance in schools was linked to physical activities among students. Researchers who participated in the study had initially made an assumption that children who enrolled in physical education excelled in academic. This can be attributed to the reduction of boredom and keeping a child more focused.
The research posted in ACSM’s journal scrutinized 250 middle-aged students. A random assignment to PE classes was conducted at the beginning of the first semester of that particular academic year. Researchers gathered specific information pertaining to a student’s level of activity. The information was based both inside and outside the physical exercise class. The results were compared to their performances in mathematics, science, and world study subjects.
Researchers noted that enrollment in Physical Education (moderately for 20minutes, 5 days per week) had no significant impact on the grades of the students involved in the study. Vigorous activities for at least 30 minutes for 4 days were recommended by the government’s Healthy People 2011. The study reported that vigorous children involved in sports or other physical activities had better grades as compared to their counterparts.
The ACSM concluded that school children should take part in sports on a regular basis to improve their academic performance. Energetic individuals are well known to concentrate in class and are well behaved. Parents are advised to encourage their children to participate in sports of their preference or rather join school clubs. Teenagers who are part of sports clubs have a likelihood of pursuing higher education. These findings were reported after a survey conducted recently was unveiled. PE in learning institutions has been drastically reduced. Furthermore, young people in school get knowledge and skills pertaining to teamwork. They are also equipped with skills on how to boost their self-esteem, foster motor skills and cooperation. Eileen Marchant, a coordinator at the UK’s Association for Physical Education states, “Sport raises self-esteem and self-confidence, there is a defined relationship between having self-confidence and academic excellence”.
Scholars from South Carolina University analyzed data from 10,000 high school students aged between 16 and 20. The participants were from different locations countrywide. There were samples of those from rural, suburban and urban areas. The researchers studied links between activities that the children engage in after school in relations to academic works. There was a clear indication that countryside children were very more active in extracurricular activities than the rest. Significantly, team sport consistently had a positive impact on the grades of students in all the schools according to the analysis. Mathew Irvin, a professor of Education Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, said, “PE has positive results on achieving higher grades and the higher possibility of completing high school”. He further stated that sports assist in developing a mentoring connection with adults, such as coaches, who are a great source of inspiration, and with focused peers. Such friends assist an unfocused student in time management skills and readiness for good results.
Students are unmotivated as revealed by The Center on Education Policy (CEP). Existing efforts are not sufficient enough to increase students’ academic performance. Schools should focus on different ways of motivating their students. Traditional methods of motivating schoolchildren by giving high-stakes standardized examination do not deal with the worrying disengagement in schools. The lack of proper ways to motivate school children is a pressing issue. Students who do not participate in games have a likelihood of not being beneficiaries of better standards. It can be argued that motivated students understand taught concepts better and are more enthusiastic about learning. This lowers the rate of school dropouts. For better grades to be realized by a student, they have to engage in physical activities. It is evident that physical exercise enables a person to be active and increases the brain capacity by reducing dumbness. The student’s level of concentration is increased thus being able to capture whatever is taught in class.
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About the Author
Luna Griffin is a specialist in English literature at the Orlando University and longtime work as a writer at https://writer-elite.com – essay writing services that provide all students with any types of written assignments in all disciplines. She always wanted to become a writer and publish a book that will become a new contribution to the literature. She started career as an English Tutor after which she started to show interest in child psychology research. She is currently working on a variety of topics related to studying the state of modern education.
