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The effect of Co-Cirricular activities on working memory and Response inhibition in primary school children
- 1. The Effect of Co-Curricular Activities on Working Memory and Response Inhibition in Primary School Children Chan Jing Cheng 085612Q Janarthanan 085590K Koh Wenyi 086420Y Kalidass 085160E Tan Shi Lin 084182A
- 2. Contents Introduction Literature Review of Present Studies Hypothesis Methodology Outcome Measures Results & Discussion Recommendations Conclusion Acknowledgments
- 3. Why this study? Recently in this decade, more emphasis is placed upon CCA in the school curriculum.
- 4. (St Clair-Thompson et al., 2006) Cognition (Etnier et al,. 2006) Brain-derived Neurotrophic Factor Sports Cerebral structure Cerebral blood flow
- 5. Benefits of Physical Activity on Cognition 14 Weeks Heng et al,. 2010 DOT-A p < 0.05 Stroop p < 0.05
- 6. (St Clair-Thompson et al., 2006) Cognition Sports Non-Sports
- 7. Non-Sports on cognition Relatively unknown In a 1988 study by Ferguson on 14 children who were enrolled in a chess program, within a 1 yr pre and post Memory test showed significant improvement, p <0.05
- 8. Hypothesis Research Hypothesis Both Sports and Non sports CCA have effects on Working Memory & Response Inhibition in primary school children -Working Memory -Response Inhibition
- 9. METHODOLOGY No of Subjects N=60 Convenience Sampling Inclusion & Exclusion Criteria Non sports Sports N=28 ( Single – Blinded ) N=32 Baseline 1st session 1)DOT-A 2)Stroop 18 weeks CCA 2hrs , once/week Non sports Sports N=25 No of N=25 (3 dropouts) subjects ( 7 dropouts) N=50 ( Single-Blinded ) 2nd session 1) Stroop 2) DotA
- 10. Outcome Measures 372 237 8473 3478 26531 12356 xxxx xxxx xxxx 483927 234789 xxxx xxxx xxxx 7431826 1234678 37618250 01235678 DOT-A STROOP Test for working memory Test for response inhibition •Test Score •Word Score •Max Span Score •Colour Score •Colour Word
- 11. METHODOLOGY No of Subjects N=60 Convenience Sampling Inclusion & Exclusion Criteria Non sports ( Single-Blinded ) Sports N=28 Baseline 1st session N=32 1)DOT-A 2)Stroop 18 weeks CCA 2hrs , once/week Non sports Sports N=25 No of N=25 (3 dropouts) subjects ( 7 dropouts) N=50 ( Single-Blinded) 2nd session 1) Stroop 2) DotA
- 12. RESULTS
- 13. Paired Sample T - Test Results CCA Non - Sports Sports DOT - A t=-2.914 t= -3.427 t=-0.687 p=0.005 p= 0.002 p= 0.499 Max Span t= -3.206 t=-3.674 t=-0.891 p=0.002 p= 0.001 p= 0.382 Stroop T - t= -1.991 t= -1.773 t= -1.204 Score p= 0.052 p= 0.089 p= 0.240 = Significant = Increased T - Score = Insignificant
- 14. Discussion •CCAs does improve working memory • Stroop : Insufficient Evidence • ? Smaller sample size
- 15. Discussion First Local Study to show positive effect of Mental CCAs on cognitive function Chess Players vs Non – Chess Players Unterrainer et al,2006 Could be used as an evidence based means of promoting CCAs Arffa 2007
- 18. Acknowledgements 1. Dr. Bala S Rajaratnam SHS Project Mananger Project Coordinator 2. Ms Chia Choon Yee SHS Lecturer 3. Mr Morris Koh Teacher of Wellington Primary school 4. Mr Patrick Tan SHS Technical Support Officer And all participants who have participated enthusiastically in this study.
Editor's Notes
- Good morning ladies and gentlemen my name is Jing Cheng and my group members consist of… The project topic that we will be presenting today is “The effect of CCA on Working Memory and Response Inhibition in Primary School Children”.
- First of all, I will be covering the introduction on why we are doing this study and the literature review of present studies. Next, Lin will talk aboutour hypothesis, methodology and outcome measures. Finally, Janar will present the results and discussion of our study with recommendations for further research and finally to conclude everything.
- Why are we doing this study? [Click to show point] Recently in this decade, there has been an added emphasis placed upon CCA in the school curriculum. For example, CCA points can be used for entries into local Junior Colleges (JCs), Polytechniques and Universities. However the benefits of CCA on cognitive performance have not been researched in Singapore. In our study, we looked at [Click to see sports pic]Sports and [Click to see Non-Sports pic]Non-Sports group and their effects on children’s cognitive performance. [Click for next slide]
- [Click to show cognition] Why is cognition important? Research have shown that cognition may influence children’s ability to understand when to apply knowledge, and then to act when it is most advantageous to do so. A child who cannot effectively plan, update [Click to show working memory] Working Memory, shift from one mental set to another, and inhibit impulsive behaviour[Click to show Response Inhibition] which is Response Inhibition, is unlikely to be able to stay on task in the classroom and excel academically. [Click to show reference] This is from St Clair-Thompson et al 2006. [Click to show Sportspic] How will sports benefit children’s cognition? In a meta-analysis study by [Click to show reference] Etnier et al 2006, regular participation in PA results in an increase in the ability of the heart to deliver oxygen to the working muscles and is indicative of an increase in cardiovascular fitness. These gains in cardiovascular fitness are thought to be associated with changes in underlying physiological mechanisms such as [Click to show cerebral pic] cerebral structure, [Click to show cerebral blood flow pic]cerebral blood flow, [Click to show BDNF pic] brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) which are related to “Nerve Growth factor”.It helps to support the survival of existing neurons and encourage the growth and differentiation of new neurons and synapses. It is active in the brain areas vital to learning, memory and higher thinking. All these have themselves been shown to be associated with [Click to show arrow]cognitive performance. [Click to show next slide]
- In another study conducted with 109 local primary school children done by Heng et al 2010,showed significant improvement in Working Memory and Response Inhibition after 14 weeks pre and post intervention of 2 hours Physical Education lessons per week. DOT-A which stands for Digit Ordering Test is used to measure Working Memory and Stroop is used to measure Response Inhibition. [Click to show next slide]
- Hence, it would be of interest to look at the effects of [Click to show Sportspic]Sports CCA on cognitive performance of primary school children in Singapore, since no studies have been researched locally. What about the benefits of [Click to show Non-Sports pic] Non-Sports on cognition? [Click to show next slide]
- [Click to show 1st point] Little is known about the effects of the Non-Sports group on cognition. In a very old study by [Click to show 2nd point]Ferguson 1988 on 14 children who were enrolled in a chess program, within a 1 yr pre and post Memory test showed significant improvement, whereby p <0.05. Hence we postulate that in [Click to show Non-Sports pic] Non-sports group, it may also have benefits on [Click to show cognition pic] cognitive performance.Next, Lin will take over to present our hypothesis and methodology. [Click to for next slide]
- Whether CCA , be it sports or non sports……..contribute to an improvement in cognitive performance in primary school children.
- Our research project is a cohort study………whereby a group of subjects are followed through a period of time. The study population used were students from Wellington Primary School , a typical neighbourhoodpri school in Singapore. 60 subjects were recruited through convenience sampling and based on the inclusion&exclusion criteria . Inclusion criteriawas : students of ages 10 and 11 / from Primary level 4 & 5 and CCA attendance of >90%. Students are excluded if they have colour deficiency , any form of cognitive impairmentseg. Autism, Attention Deficiency Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), Dyslexia and Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Or any medical problems that put them at risk during physical activity/exertion. Informed consent are given out for approval before commencement of study.As u can see, the 60 subjects were made up of 28 students from non-sports group which is represented by ICT infocomm tech Club and the 32 students from sports groups represented by volleyball and soccer club. This is a single-blinded study whereby we as the experimenters were not aware which CCA groups the subjects belonged to during measurement session.The 1st measurement session was taken right after school reopened after the June holidays. This is to ensure that both CCA groups had the same 4week wash-out period from their respective CCAs before our research study commenced. This is to ensure that both sports and non sports CCA groups start at the same baseline. These are the 2 outcome measures used : The DOT-A and STROOP test.The subjects were followed over a period of 18weeks whereby they were involved in their respective CCAs for 2hrs , once per week. 2nd measurement session was done after 18weeks. There were 3 and 7dropouts from non sports and sports group respectively. This was due to absentism on the measurement day or the fact that thosestudents did not have 90% CCA attendance. Hence , our total sample size at 2nd measurement session was shrunk down to 50 subjects. In order to reduce the dropout rates in the study : Contact reminder was made to CCA coordinator 1week prior to 2nd session of measurement to remind the students to attend. However , we were unable to complete the post 18wk intervention measurement for the agility test. This will be explained and elaborated by Jana later.
- Now, I’ll talk about the 2 outcome measures used in our study to measure the components of cognitive.First one is DOT-A , the Digit Ordering Test which measures a person’s working memory. Working memory can be defined as a short-term memory system involved in attention control, regulation, and maintenance of a limited amount of information relevant to the task at hand (Miyake & Shah et al, 1999).Having good working memory is vital for remembering instructions, performing mental calculations in school.DOT-A consists of six levels of increasing length ( minimum of 3 digits to maximumeight digits). Each item comprises two trials, one of them containing a double digit. Subjects are asked to repeat these digits in ascending order immediately after presentation. The test is discontinued after failure on both trials of any item (Weirheid et al, 2002). 1 point is awarded for each completed level. The Max Span score is recorded as the highest quantity of digits that the subject can recall. The 2nd outcome measure is Stroop Color-Word test which measures response inhibition. This is refers to the individual’s ability to use selective attention , to shift cognitive sets and deal with interference. For school -going children , having good response inhibition are likely important for ignoring irrelevant information/distractions in class and moving from one task to another. There are 3 components in this test and subjects are given 45s for each component.1st being: Word Score which is the maximum qty of words read. 2nd being : Colour Score which is the maximum qty of colour ink read. 3rd component is the colour-word score whereby subject is asked to name the color of the ink rather than the word. Interference Score is calculated by CW-C. Lower interference score indicates better response inhibition.
- The subjects were followed over a period of 18weeks whereby they were involved in their respective CCAs for 2hrs , once per week. 2nd measurement session was done after 18weeks. There were 3 and 7dropouts from non sports and sports group respectively. This was due to absentism on the measurement day or the fact that thosestudents did not have 90% CCA attendance. Hence , our total sample size at 2nd measurement session was reduced to 50 subjects. In order to reduce the dropout rates in the study : Contact reminder was made to CCA coordinator 1week prior to 2nd session of measurement to remind the students to attend.
- Ok, next for our results, we did a paired sample t-test firstly on the CCAs as a whole, and then we split the 2 groups, non-sports and sports to analyze our results. So for DOT- A, which measures working memory, we analysed the total marks that the students got, as well as the max span, which is the highest quantity of numbers that the subjects could recall, as mentioned by lyn earlier. As for stroop, we measured the t-scores of the subjects.In this results table we are presenting, a smiley face indicates a result that is significant, a neutral face indicates a result that has an increased mean but not significant and a sad face indicates insignificant results.So, if we look at the results(CLICK HERE), we can see that for the non-sports group, the dot-a and max-span results were significant, for the sports group(CLICK HERE) , the dot-a and max span had an increase in mean, and for the CCAs as a whole, which is the combined results of the 2 groups (CLICK HERE), the dot-a and max span were significant(CLICK HERE), however, for the stroop, we did not get results that were significant(CLICK HERE).
- Ok, next for discussion, the scores of DOT-A seems better for the non-sports group than the sports group, however when we analysed the CCA group as a whole, there was a significant improvement in the scores.(CLICK HERE) Therefore, the evidence suggests that cca does improve working memory.This is in line with a study by our seniors, Heng et al who found that working memory does improve with Physical activity.However, for stroop we did not get sufficient evidence to indicate any improvements as opposed to heng et al(CLICK HERE). One possible reason for this (CLICK HERE) may be our studies’ smaller sample size as opposed to heng et al – Our sample size was 50 as opposed to heng et al’s study, which had 109 subjects.Response inhibition : Preschool yearsWorking Memory : Middle school years Kail et al,2007
- Next, previous studies done have shown positive effects of physical activities such as PE lessons, on cognition, but our study is the first study done locally (CLICK HERE) on CCAs that have shown positive effects on cognitive function. This is especially true for the non-sports CCAs as their result was very favourable for the working memory component.Our study is also in line with a study done by unterainner et al in 2006 to find the cognitive ability of chess players, which is somewhat similar to our non – sports CCA and non chess players.The study revealed that chess players fared better in tower of London task, which is a task measuring the subjects’ cognitive planning abilities.Next, actually currently it is still not compulsory in primary schools to have a CCA,so our finding that CCAs does have a positive effect on working memory could be used as an evidence based means, on top of the many other benefits of ccas to promote and encourage CCAs in primary schools.Furthermore a study by arrffa in 2007 also showed that working memory is directly proportional to intelligence, this supplement our study in the sense that we could then hypothesize that by taking part in CCAs,students improve their working memory and by doing so, they may improve their intelligence.
- Ok,as for recommendations, since we have found positive cognitive effects, in the form of improvements in working memory, we would like to use our study to go on to encourage CCAs in primary school to parents and children alike.
- Therefore, we would like to conclude by saying that we believe well implemented and organized CCAs can play a key role in the holistic development of students, and end our presentation by reiterating our view that CCAs should be encouraged in schools.