FINAL DATA ANALYSIS PROJECT

COURTNEY WILD
INTRODUCTION
In Hamblen County today, children in elementary schools are
only allowed two days a week for an elective gym class. The other
three days of the week are dedicated to library and music. Physical
activity in schools has become much less of a priority due to the
academic demands and because of this, obesity rates keep rising in
children and adolescents. I was curious about the effects of exercise in
children and how, or if, it helps their abilities in school. Thus, my
research question evolved; does exercise influence students ability to
perform better math skills vs. other elective classes that do not include
physical activity. My null hypothesis with this study was that all of the
groups would be equal or the same. Likewise, my alternative
hypothesis was that there would be at least one difference between
groups.
LITERATURE REVIEW
A study conducted by Dawn Coe, James Pivarnik, Christopher
Womack, and other researchers investigated the longitudinal effects of
physical education and activity levels on academic achievement in
children over the course of an academic year. The subjects in this
study included 214 sixth graders who attended public school with the
average income slightly above average. Students were randomized

into two separate groups for one semester then switched groups for
the next semester. One group that participated in low to moderate
activity in a physical education class for 55 minutes a day and another
group had extra art and computer classes for 55 minutes a day.
Academic achievement was based on standardized scores from the
following four core classes: mathematics, science, English, and world
studies. The results of this study showed that physical education class
enrollment status did not influence academic achievement in core
classes.
In another study done by Yasmin Ahamed, Heather Macdonald,
Katherine Reed and other researchers on school based physical
activity, it was found that extra physical activity minutes in school did
not have a significant effect on academic scores. This study was a 16month randomized controlled trial in ten elementary schools, five
intervention schools and five usual practice or control schools. The
intervention schools implemented classroom based activities such as
skipping or hopping for 15 minutes a day while the control schools
received no specialized training. Academic achievement was measured
using a standardized test in specific subject areas including
mathematics, reading, and language. Though the extra physical
activity minutes in the intervention schools did not have a significant
effect when compared to the control schools, it did not compromise
academic performance overall.

A final study investigated the effects of a 2-year physical

education program called SPARK on physical activity and fitness in
elementary school students. This study was conducted by James Sallis,
Thomas McKenzie, John Alcaraz and other researchers with a quasiexperimental research design. Seven schools were assigned with one
of three conditions, specialist-led by a certified physical education
specialist, teacher-led by each trained classroom teacher, and a control
condition with usual physical education. SPARK physical education
classes were conducted in intervention classrooms at least three days
a week for about 30 minutes a day. Anthropometric measurements,
reaction times, and other methods of measurement were conducted
and results showed that there were substantial differences in
intervention groups versus the control groups, with the intervention
groups expending twice as many calories as the control group. These
results suggest that physical activity in schools can have long-term
benefits for adolescent health as well as short terms benefits including
more focus and less boredom in the classroom that can ultimately
benefit 97% of the children in the United States.
METHODS
I tested a group of 39 kindergarten students at Russellville
Elementary School, a total of three classes. My method to obtain the
data was a math worksheet that was catered to the academic level of
the students. All classes were on equal academic levels. I distributed

the worksheet to the students after they have participated in their

elective class, gym, library, or music. To make sure data collection was
equal among classes I explained the instructions of the worksheet but
students were not allowed to ask any questions after distribution. My
dependent variable in this study is the students math scores. I chose
which class went where on my day of testing, so the independent
variable was the elective classes. Since I was testing the equality of
three or more means at one time using variances, I assessed and
analyzed my data by running a One-Way ANOVA test.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The results of this study showed that there was no significant
difference among the groups in math scores after participating in
different elective classes. The P-value of this study, .3876, is greater
than 0.05 and therefore means that the variances were not
significantly different. This P-value helps state that the data is
inconsistent and the null hypothesis failed to be rejected, or was
accepted. The F-value of .970 also helps explain why we would fail to
reject the null, since it near or close to the value of one. The mean and
standard deviation for each group were quite similar but varied slightly
and are as follows: Class A had a mean of 12.08 and std of 1.32, Class
B had a mean of 11.54 and std of 1.50, and Class C had a mean of
11.31 and a std of 1.49. Therefore, the results of this study show that

there were no differences in scores among kindergarten students after

participating in different elective classes. (p>.05)
One limitation of this study included age. Kindergarten students
are on a low level of academic learning and need more attention than
older elementary students. Multiple factors such as attention span,
time of day, outside distractions, and many other factors could have
played a role in the results of the data. Another limitation was testing
material. Since I had a short time limit for my study, I chose to do a
worksheet rather than a test. One problem I saw with this method
was that the students did not take it very seriously and saw it more of
a break from their teacher than a test of their knowledge. For future
research, I would suggest choosing an older age group that requires
less full time attention and more guided instruction. I would also
suggest implementing a program over a longer period of time then
providing a standardized test to compare results. In conclusion,
students who participate in physically active electives will not have
higher math scores.

SPREADSHEET DATA FILE

Class A-Gym/Class B- Library/Class C- Music
Class(A,B
,C)
A
A
A
A

Score(013)
13
10
13
12

A
A
A
A
A
A
A
A
A
B
B
B
B
B
B
B
B
B
B
B
B
B
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C

SAS RESULTS

13
13
12
13
13
13
11
12
9
12
12
13
13
11
13
8
12
12
13
10
11
10
12
13
8
12
10
11
9
12
12
11
13
12
12

Courtney Wild

One-Way Analysis of Variance

12/1/14

Results

The ANOVA Procedure

Class Level Information
LevelsValues

Class

Class
Number of Observations Read
Number of Observations Used

3A B C
39
39

Generated by the SAS System ('Local', W32_7PRO) on December 01, 2014 at 9:14:00 AM

One-Way Analysis of Variance

Results

The ANOVA Procedure

Dependent Variable: Score

Source

DF

Sum of Squares

Mean Square

F Value

Pr > F

Model
Error
Corrected Total

2
36
38

4.05128205
74.92307692
78.97435897

2.02564103
2.08119658

0.97

0.3876

R-Square

0.051299
Source

Class

Coeff Var

12.39268

Root MSE

Score Mean

1.442635

11.64103

DF

Anova SS

Mean Square

F Value

Pr > F

4.05128205

2.02564103

0.97

0.3876

Generated by the SAS System ('Local', W32_7PRO) on December 01, 2014 at 9:14:00 AM

One-Way Analysis of Variance

Results

The ANOVA Procedure

Tukey's Studentized Range (HSD) Test for Score

Note: This test controls the Type I experimentwise error rate, but it generally has a higher Type I
I error rate than REGWQ.

Alpha
Error Degrees of Freedom
Error Mean Square
Critical Value of Studentized Range
Minimum Significant Difference

0.05
36
2.081197
3.45675
1.3831

Means with the same letter

are not significantly different.
Tukey Grouping

Mean

A
A
A
A
A

NClass

12.0769

13A

11.5385

13B

11.3077

13C

Generated by the SAS System ('Local', W32_7PRO) on December 01, 2014 at 9:14:00 AM

Summary Statistics
Results

The MEANS Procedure

Class

A
B
C

N Obs

13
13
13

Analysis Variable : Score

Mean
Std Dev
Minimum

12.0769231
11.5384615
11.3076923

1.3204506
1.5063966
1.4935760

9.0000000
8.0000000
8.0000000

Maximum

13.0000000 13
13.0000000 13
13.0000000 13

Generated by the SAS System ('Local', W32_7PRO) on December 01, 2014 at 9:15:47 AM

REFERENCES FOR LITERATURE

1) Coe, DP., Pivarnik, J., Womack, C., Reeves, M., Malina, R. Effect of
physical
education and activity levels on academic achievement in
children. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 38(8);
1515-1519.
2) Ahamed, Y., Macdonald, H., Reed, K, Naylor, PJ, Liu-Ambrose, T.,
McKay, H. (2006).
School-based physical activity does not compromise childrens
academic performance. Medicine and Science in Sports and
Exercise, DOI: 10.1249/01.mss.0000241654.45500.8e.
3) Sallis, FJ., McKenzie, LT., Alcaraz, EJ., Kolody, B., Faucette, N., Hovell,
FM. (1997).
The effects of a 2-year physical education program (SPARK) on
physical activity and fitness in elementary school students.
American Journal of Public Health, 87(8); 1328-1334.