Author(s)

Chung Bing Yang¹, Te Hung Tsao^2*

¹Department of Physical Education and Kinesiology, National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan, China.
²The Center for Physical and Health Education, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Taiwan, China.

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 treadmill and 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 Pearson product-moment correlation. The results displayed that males were significantly higher than females in CRF (p < 0.05). 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 (p < 0.05). For academic performance, the GPA displayed similar between different genders. After regression analyses, the CRF was 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.

Maximal Oxygen Consumption, Grade Point Average, Running Performance

Yang, C. and Tsao, T. (2020) Cardiorespiratory Fitness, Health-Related Physical Fitness and Academic Performance in College Students. Advances in Physical Education, 10, 42-53. doi: 10.4236/ape.2020.101005.