Acute effect of two different physical education classes on memory in children school-age

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an aerobic game vs. team game class on memory in children. A total of 236 children aged 8–12 years participated in this study. The students were randomly assigned to two experimental groups (EGs): team game group (EG1), n = 79; aerobic exercise group (EG2), n = 79; and control group (CG) n = 78 (CG did not perform any kind of physical education). The Rey Auditory Verbal Learning test was employed to analyse memory. In the pre-test condition, there were no significant differences in any memory variables. In post-test conditions (20 min after of the physical exercise), the EGs displayed higher scores than the CG in deferred memory and recognition, moreover, the EG1 displayed higher scores than the CG in Trial 5 (p = .002), trials summation (p = .003), and learning curve (p = .043). There were no significant differences between EGs in both pretest and posttest conditions. For the group x time interaction (within-group), the EGs showed significant improvements in all memory variables except in the learning curve. In the EGs, the effect size (group x time) in the most of the memory variables was medium and in the CG it was low.