Brief classroom exercise before tests improves scores, UNGC study finds

As many public school districts kick off the traditional calendar year this week, new research from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro is showing the importance of physical activity in producing better academic achievement.

UNCG researchers found that a burst of physical activity in the classroom may be enough to boost children’s performance on standardized tests. Specifically, the report found that giving students roughly nine minutes of high-intensity interval exercise immediately before testing produced measurable gains on a standardized measure of verbal comprehension. 

The study, published in the journal Psychology of Sport and Exercise, involved 25 children between the ages of nine and 12 and compared three conditions: a nine-minute interval exercise routine that can be done in place, moderate-intensity cycling, and seated rest.

“In the classroom, you have teachers that say, ‘Let’s take a movement break to get you focused again,’” said lead author Eric Drollette, an assistant professor at UNCG, in a statement. “We know that’s the case anecdotally in the classroom, but we hadn’t put the science to it.”

To replicate what teachers might realistically do during a lesson, researchers designed a short sequence of activities that require no special equipment: high knees, jumping jacks, lunges, and air squats. Students performed each exercise for 30 seconds, followed by 30 seconds of rest, for a total of about nine minutes. After the exercise session — and after the comparison sessions of cycling or seated rest on separate days — students completed a cognitive test that measured verbal comprehension.

When the same children engaged in the high-intensity interval exercise immediately prior to testing, their scores on the verbal comprehension measure were significantly higher than when they had been seated beforehand, the study found. Co-author Jennifer Etnier, the Julia Taylor Morton distinguished professor at UNCG, said the findings provide evidence that even a single, short bout of movement can have meaningful benefits for cognitive performance.

“This research provides us with valuable insights into the potential for a single short period of exercise to benefit children’s cognitive performance,” Etnier said in the release. “These findings may have important implications for teachers who are incorporating movement breaks into their classrooms and who might then see benefits to their students’ academic performance.”

The study also looked beyond test scores to what was happening in students’ brains. Investigators used electroencephalogram caps to measure a neuroelectrical signal known as error-related negativity, which appears when people make mistakes. According to the researchers, higher ERN amplitude is associated with increased fixation on an error, which can distract from task performance. The UNCG team observed a decrease in ERN after the interval exercise condition, suggesting that the short workout made errors less distracting and may have helped students respond more effectively when they did make mistakes.

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