Children who participate in sport more likely be high achievers, study finds
Children who participate in sport have are more likely to get higher school results, and have a greater chance at attending uni, according to new research by the University of Sydney. The study, involving over 4,000 aged 4 to 21 found that a previously established link between sport and academic performance is not coincidental.
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00:00 It's not necessarily a new idea, but this is a lot stronger evidence for that idea.
00:06 Having longitudinal data following kids all the way through from when they're four to
00:11 21 years, we found that kids who continued playing sports all the way through their childhood
00:15 into adolescence performed better in a whole range of different academic tests, including
00:20 they had performed higher on attention and memory tests, they performed better in their
00:24 NAPLAN tests, numeracy and literacy, they performed better in their ATAR scores, and
00:29 they're also more likely to attend university as well.
00:32 The other thing we found that kids who continued playing sport were less likely to be absent
00:36 from school, which was a pretty cool finding.
00:38 Yeah, very.
00:39 A healthy body, healthy mind is ringing true here, isn't it?
00:42 Did the research at all look at specific sports, whether they be team or individual, and how
00:49 they might impact on literacy, on numeracy, on certain subjects?
00:53 Yeah, we did.
00:55 We were able to compare individual sports versus team sports, and there were some quite
00:59 interesting differences there.
01:01 We found that kids who continued playing team sports were less likely to be absent from
01:06 school, they had higher attention and memory scores, and they're also more likely to complete
01:11 their high school certificate.
01:13 Whereas kids who continued playing individual sports, they performed higher on their NAPLAN
01:18 literacy tests, and they also received higher ATAR scores.
01:21 So some quite interesting differences there.
01:23 Right.
01:24 So if you've got your dance, your tennis, swimming, they're the ones that contributed
01:29 more positively to NAPLAN, literacy and NAPLAN.
01:33 Yeah, literacy and also the ATAR scores.
01:37 Yeah.
01:38 OK, wow.
01:39 So were all the results in this research positive?
01:42 You know, did it always lead to participation in sport lead to a better academic outcome?
01:47 Yeah, across all of the different academic outcomes we looked at, including attention,
01:52 memory, NAPLAN, ATAR, HSC, attendance, all types of sports were beneficial in some way.
02:00 There was no negative outcomes of the study.
02:02 OK, and what are some of the reasons behind the findings, do you think?
02:07 Good question.
02:08 There's a lot of possibilities as to why this might be.
02:11 It could be due to kids who are playing sport, achieving physical activity guidelines and
02:17 improving their mental health, being happier and more likely to want to be at school.
02:22 I think for team sport especially, there's the social connection aspect.
02:25 So kids who are on a team are more likely to make friendships and bond with their peers
02:30 and also gain a sense of belonging, which can be really important in school and might
02:34 be why the team sport specifically relates to those school outcomes like attending school
02:40 and achieving their high school certificate.
02:43 As we mentioned earlier, Catherine, that research into this has been done in the past by Sydney
02:47 University and others.
02:49 What is different with this research?
02:54 So I think the main difference with this research is that, well, there's a couple of things.
02:57 The first thing being it's a longitudinal study.
02:59 So we followed the same 4,000 kids from when they were four years old.
03:04 We followed them for 12 years all the way through until they were 21 years old or 20
03:08 or 21 years old, depending.
03:10 And the other thing is that it is a longitudinal study being a strong study design, which means
03:16 we can make some more causal inferences.
03:19 And the fact that we've got so many Australian kids in the study as well, it's a nationally
03:23 representative sample as well.
03:25 And we were able to control for things like socioeconomic status and actually tease out.
03:29 And we found that even kids who live in low socioeconomic status areas, sport was beneficial
03:34 for them too.
03:36 So the research shows that sport is good for a student in academia.
03:42 But we know that a lot of kids drop out of sport as they get older due to a range of
03:47 factors, the increased amount of time that they need to spend studying.
03:52 We also know that sport can be extremely expensive.
03:56 There are long distances to travel to get into sport.
03:58 So if we know this is good now, how do we keep kids in sport?
04:02 That is a great question.
04:05 There are so many different reasons why kids drop out of sport.
04:09 And for all kids, there are different reasons.
04:10 I think one of the main reasons that kids drop out of sport is that it can become quite
04:14 competitive.
04:15 And a lot of kids, they really just want to go and have fun and get the social aspect
04:19 of sport.
04:20 They don't want to be there to win.
04:21 They don't want to go high level.
04:22 They just want to be there to have fun.
04:24 And I feel like for kids, especially adolescents, there's not a lot of fun, adaptive, flexible
04:29 models of sport for them.
04:30 So if we can kind of provide those more fun, flexible options, I think that might be one
04:36 way that we can keep more kids in sport for longer.
04:39 Yeah, and I guess also inclusive options to make it available to all students.
04:44 Yes, exactly right.
04:45 For all students, especially those living in low SES areas.
04:49 And yeah, for the kids who face additional barriers, especially for those kids, I think
04:53 yes, inclusive sports is something that we need to prioritise for sure.
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