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Disentangling the relationship between children's motor ability, executive function and academic achievement
Get PDFEven though positive relations between children’s motor ability and their academic achievement are frequently reported, the underlying mechanisms are still unclear. Executive function has indeed been proposed, but hardly tested as a potential mediator. The aim of the present study was therefore to examine the mediating role of executive function in the relationship between motor ability and academic achievement, also investigating the individual contribution of specific motor abilities to the hypothesized mediated linkage to academic achievement. At intervals of ten weeks, 236 children aged between 10 and 12 years were tested in terms of their motor ability (t1: cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength, motor coordination), core executive functions (t2: updating, inhibition, shifting), and academic achievement (t3: mathematics, reading, spelling). Structural equation modelling revealed executive function to be a mediator in the relation between motor ability and academic achievement, represented by a significant indirect effect. In separate analyses, each of the three motor abilities were positively related to children’s academic achievement. However, only in the case of children’s motor coordination, the mediation by executive function accounted for a significance percentage of variance of academic achievement data. The results provide evidence in support of models that conceive executive function as a mechanism explaining the relationship that links children’s physical activity-related outcomes to academic achievement and strengthen the advocacy for quality physical activity not merely focused on health-related physical fitness outcomes, but also on motor skill development and learning
The role of cross-group friendship and emotions in social exclusion
No full textBackground: Most countries have started to educate students with special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream schools, but it remains unclear how inclusive attitudes towards students with SEN can be promoted.
Aims: This study investigated the role of adolescents’ friendships and socio-moral competencies for their attitudes towards the inclusion of students with SEN. Specifically, we studied whether adolescents without SEN would develop more inclusive attitudes if they had close friendships with SEN students and if they expressed negative emotions about social exclusion.
Methods: Adolescents’ inclusive attitudes and their emotions were gathered from survey data of 1225 Swiss students aged 11–13. Social network data were collected to assess
adolescents’ friendship relationships.
Results: The results indicated that adolescents’ friendship closeness with SEN students positively related to their inclusive attitudes. However, this was only true for adolescents who anticipated more negative than positive emotions if a student with SEN was excluded.
Implications: These findings highlight the role of friendship relationships between adolescents with and without SEN and adolescents’ socio-moral experiences for their attitudes towards the inclusion of peers with SEN. Thus, inclusive education may benefit from promoting friendships among students with and without SEN as well as adolescents’ socio-moral competencies
Sportbezogenes Fähigkeitsselbstkonzept und Selbstwertgefühl: Zum moderierenden Effekt der Zentralität bei Knaben und Mädchen im frühen Jugendalter
No full textPhilosophieren mit Kindern ist aktive Demokratie
No full textPhilosophy with Children is Democracy in Action and thus part and parcel of Civic Education. This slogan can be supported, first, because the respective methods of Philosophy with Children and Civic Education are very similar: namely, by the fact that political socialisation is driven substantially by developing communication competences, a concern at the heart of Philosophy with Children. Second, reflecting the basic concepts and values of civic education is first and foremost a philosophical issue. Data recently collected amongst children and teenagers aged 4 to 17 in Scotland and Switzerland on the question “In what kind of society do you want to live?” used Catherine McCall’s “Community of Philosophical Inquiry” (CoPI) to corroborate these assumptions and to contribute to understanding how Philosophy with Children complements Civic Education in terms of its methodology and its content: the discussions on justice lay the foundations upon which society can act politically
