Mar 30, 2020
The study examines the relationship between walking, cognitive,
and academic skills. Students from elementary, middle, high school,
and college were required to walk for 10 min prior to completing
feature detection, Simon-type memory, and mathematical
problem-solving tasks. Participants were counterbalanced to remove
a time bias. Ten minutes of walking had a significant positive
effect on Simon-type memory and critical feature-detection tasks
among all age groups. Separately, with mathematical problem-solving
ability, higher performing high-school students demonstrated
significant positive
effects on mathematical reasoning tasks based on the Bloom
Taxonomy. However, poorly achieving high-school students performed
significantly better than those with
higher grades in mathematics on tests of mathematical
problem-solving ability based on the Bloom’s Taxonomy. The study
indicates that there is justification to employ relatively
simple means to effect lifestyle, academic, and cognitive
performance.