TITLE:
Cardiorespiratory Fitness, Health-Related Physical Fitness and Academic Performance in College Students
AUTHORS:
Chung Bing Yang, Te Hung Tsao
KEYWORDS:
Maximal Oxygen Consumption, Grade Point Average, Running Performance
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Physical Education,
Vol.10 No.1,
February
14,
2020
ABSTRACT: Whether cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and physical fitness affect academic performance in college first-year students is a concerning issue. Therefore, the goal of this study was to examine the relationship between academic performance and CRF and the components of physical fitness in college first-year students. A total of 98 college first-year students (female: 30, male: 68) participated in this study. The CRF was measured using a gas analyzer on a treadmilland physical fitness included body mass index, sit-up in one minute, standing long jump, sit-and-reach, 800 (female) and 1600-m (male) run/walk. The two assessments were scheduled by an interval of 7 - 10 days. The grade point average (GPA) in formal grade report was provided by each participant after the completion of the first academic year. The data were analyzed by an independent t-test and the relationships between variables were analyzed by Pearsonproduct-momentcorrelation. The results displayed that males were significantly higher than females in CRF (p0.05). For physical fitness, the BMI, sit-up in one minute, standing long jump were significantly higher in males than in females. However, females were significantly higher than males in the number of sit-and-reach (p0.05). For academic performance, the GPAdisplayed similar between different genders. After regression analyses, the CRFwas significantly related with academic performance and explained 56% of the variance for GPA in male college freshmen. However, neither CRF nor the components of physical fitness showed any significant relationship with academic performance in females. In conclusion, the CRF accounted for the variance of academic performance in male. However, a similar result was not found in the female part.