Empirical Study Of The Impact Of Various Short-Term Physical Activity Of Moderate Intensity On The Executive Function Of Children In Their Preadolescence

Executive function, also known as EF, is an advanced cognitive function in the brain. Whenever an individual performs complex cognitive function based tasks, EF plays a critical role in processing, controlling and coordinating all types of different cognitive activities in the brain region. The study of the mechanism of executive function given its important role played in human’s core cognitive and emotional function has become increasingly important in the development of the field of health sciences. High efficiency and fully functioning of the executive function region of an individual are the necessity for the individual to perform sound cognitive tasks and to ensure an individual’s ability to control the appropriateness of his or her behaviour; once someone experiences executive function impairment, many issues will occur. In this study, we will provide evidences to show that many phenomenons including behavioral and mood disorders, such as increased aggressiveness, attention deficit, hyperkinetic disorder, learning disability, and the development of separation or depression syndrome among children are all linked to executive function impairment. There are also evidences to show that an improvement in the executive function can enhance the cognitive, emotional and socialization activities positively of the children in their preadolescence. In other words, an improvement in the executive function can improve the overall mental health level and in turn help the students to achieve higher academic performance.This study begins by conducting three trials including aerobic exercise, resistance (strength) exercise and flexibility exercise, respectively. These investigations are aiming to gather evidences to support our conclusion that physical activity enhances core cognitive activities positively related to the execution function. Therefore this study is designed to compare the level of impact on the executive function of the children between different types of physical activities. Furthermore, we wish the study to facilitate broader implementation of specialized physical activity program inside and outside of regular physical education curriculum among all elementary schools so that possible solution to enhance the executive function of the preadolescence can be formulated through duplicating the models outlined in the study. The methodology of the study and intervention trials are all based on the philosophy of practicality that all methods are feasible to implement in real life situation to achieve the goal of not only building a strong physiological and psychological well-being among the youth but also setting the milestone in pursuing their ultimate lifetime physical education objective in the long run.This study was conducted in 244 students in Grade 4 from YuCai Elementary School. These 244 students were randomly assigned to either one of the three exercising groups (intervention groups) or to an inactive control group. Among the intervention groups,52 students have been randomly assigned to aerobic exercise; 50 students have been randomly assigned to resistance exercise; another 51 students were in the flexibility group and the rest assigned to the control group. Guided by professional instructors, students in different intervention groups will all be participating at the same time in the same training centre while exercising for the same amount of duration. In this study, we have deliberately chosen the exercises to take place during their existing P.E. curriculum. The intervention groups engaged in 30 minutes of sports. The quantitative results of the improvement of executive function were measured by 3 functional tests both before and after the intervention. The test programs consist of three sub functional tests supported and to be interpreted by the psychology software tool called E-primel.1. We test and gather statistical results of each of these 3 test programs and use E-primel.1 to analyze the inputs. The 3 tests were always conducted in the same order and same manner:(1)Flanker task function assessment; (2)1-back updating function task assessment;(3)More-odd shifting function task assessment. Each test was performed on a group basis, after which the exact same instruction was explained by the same instructor to the children each time until all students reached a comprehensive understanding of the test task.The quantitative analysis results have suggested that the overall impact of short-term physical activity of moderate intensity on the executive function of the students varies between different types of intervention groups. The aerobic and flexibility intervention group have shown significant improvement on overall performance of executive function tasks which includes activities related to inhibitory function, updating function and shifting function, i.e. P=0.000<0. 01> P=0.048< 0.05; We have observed some overall improvement in all executive function among the resistance intervention group, i.e. P=0.520>0.05. The second observation is that all 3 types of physical activities have shown improvement on the inhibitory function of the executive function, i.e.P=0.028<0.05, P=0.001<0.05、P=0.002<0.01, the results have recommended that any type of physical activity can be adopted by elementary schools as an effective way to enhance the inhibitory function of its students. The third observation indicates that different types of short-term physical activities of moderate intensity affect the updating function of the students differently. Aerobic exercise has shown remarkable improvement on the updating function, i.e. P=0.014<0.05; the other two intervention groups have shown no noticeable improvement, i.e. P=0.528> 0.05-. P=0.212> 0.05; This quantitative data analysis presented aerobic exercises to be the best candidate for improving the updating function of the students in their preadolescence. The last observation we can extract from the data is in terms of the impact on the shifting function of the executive function, both aerobic and flexibility intervention group have shown prominent improvement on the shifting function, i.e. P=0.002<0.01、 P=0.000< 0.01; In the contrary, resistance intervention group has shown no effect on improvement of shifting function, i.e. P=0.965>0.05.We conclude our study that:(1) short-term physical activity of moderate intensity are in fact effective solutions in enhancing the executive function of the students in their preadolescence. (2) The observed level of improvement depends on the types of physical activity performed. (3) Different types of short-term physical activity of moderate intensity affects only the selective sub function of the executive function, comparing the results from all three interventions. aerobic exercise has demonstrated to be the most effective type of physical activity in enhancing the executive function of the students in their preadolescence.