Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between extracurricular activities, habitual exercise and academic achievement in junior high school students.
Methods: The subjects were 627 junior high school students (330 boys and 297 girls). The subjects were divided according to their extracurricular activities such as sports and cultural clubs, or no activity. The number of hours per week the student exercises was surveyed by questionnaire. For academic achievement, the cumulative records from five subjects (Japanese, social studies, mathematics, science, English) and four subjects (music, art, physical education, and technical courses or home economics) were used. The academic achievement in each subject was rated on a 5-point scale.
Results: Among the boys, the students involved in sports clubs had higher academic achievement compared to students who were not involved in any extracurricular activities (for the five subjects: sports clubs 16.9±4.4, no activity 14.1±4.5, p＜0.05). Among the girls, students involved in both sports and cultural clubs had higher academic achievement compared to the students who were not involved in extracurricular activities (for the five subjects: sports clubs 18.0±4.1, cultural clubs 19.0±3.9, no association 16.3±4.4, p＜0.05). With age as the controlled variable, positive correlation was shown between time spent playing sports and academic achievement in the five subjects (boys: r＝0.182p＜0.001, girls: r＝0.125p＜0.05).
Conclusions: It was suggested that the academic achievement of male and female students involved in sports clubs was higher than that of students who were not involved in any activity, and there was a positive correlation between habitual exercise and academic achievement.
