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This paper explores the impact of residential mobility on educational outcomes. By considering a large Dutch city with substantial internal residential mobility, we examine how residential mobility influences the decision of students to drop out of school. The paper exploits a rich administrative dataset with extensive information on educational, individual, family, housing and moving characteristics of students. It combines a matching design with a multivariate regression analysis, such that the evaluation draws on a well-comparable control group for the treated students. Accounting for individual, family, educational, neighborhood and housing characteristics, as well as for school and year fixed effects, we observe that residential mobility increases the probability of school dropout in the first few years after moving. The estimated effect changes, however, to a lower risk of early school leaving after an initial period, and then changes again to a higher risk after 6 years. This effect remains, regardless the level of education the students attended, or whether the student moves to a better or a worse neighborhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increased request for better student success, several methods investigate teachers' effectiveness undertaken with continued support from a related learning technology. With less durational experiences or extended education, programmers can have several ranges in theory-based universities. Teaching effectiveness in higher education strengthens students' impact and performance in the learning environment. The technological development in different platforms is completely understood and enhances education strategies. Community-based learning advantages for higher education are well recorded. The author concludes that educational institutions must make thoughtful choices about the parts they use, that they should strategically manage the network of internal and external stakeholders, including all communications and well-informed decisions, that they should recognize that shifts in student perceptions are common and encourage flexibility in system operations, and that it is normal for platforms to have specialized, high-performing departments/sections. The perspective of the group member is relatively less understood. Therefore, this paper proposes a community theory-based learning (CT-BL) framework to improve higher education learning technologies. CT-BL presents perspectives on how professors should contribute to strengthening partnerships between students and educators. The descriptive statistical model is used in a questionnaire session to recognize the central points in community participants' answers. Practical application of the framework within a variety of conservation groups illustrates the integrated approach's potential to serve as a portal through which practitioners can enter the realm of social science theory to better comprehend the current state and future directions of CT-BL interventions and activities. Students from several universities form collaborations to describe the way of theory-based learning. The community-based learning is evaluated based on the questionnaire raised by the learning participants. The community-based theory enhances higher education learning technologies. The overall participants of the University's higher education strategies are focused on community-based learning. Added teacher support for student awareness of information, experience, and competence and expanded academic participation in all cooperation elements involving advisor suggestions. The numerical results show that the proposed CT-BL model enhances the evaluation rate of 95.6%, reliability ratio of 94.2%, an efficiency ratio of 95.3%, the recognition accuracy of 90.3%, learning recognition rate of 92.2%, the impact of beliefs of 96.2%, dynamic nature rate of 93.4% when compared to other existing models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Models of persuasion (e.g., ) and conceptual change () acknowledge that reader elaboration of and engagement with a given text increases the potential for belief change and that the process of elaboration or engagement is fueled by reader motivation. However, little is known about the predictive powers of various motivational constructs on belief change after reading compelling texts in both traditional paper and computer-based formats. As such, the present study examined how belief change is differentially influenced by three motivational constructs (i.e., need for cognition, topic interest, and topic interestingness), as well as the mediating role played by mode of delivery. Utilizing stratified, random sampling, college students responded to two persuasive articles presented through two distinct media—paper and computer. The results revealed that mode of delivery did not significantly influence belief change. In addition, of the three motivational constructs only need for cognition emerged as a statistically significant predictor of belief change, regardless of the mode of delivery. Implications for research and practice are forwarded. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Active learning combines academic content with physical activity (PA) to increase child PA and academic performance, but the impact of active learning is mixed. It may be that this is a moderated relationship in which active learning is beneficial for only some children. This paper examine the impact of baseline academic performance and gender as moderators for the effects of active learning on children's academic performance. In the ASK-study, 1129 fifth-graders from 57 Norwegian elementary schools were randomized by school to intervention or control in a physical activity intervention between November 2014 and June 2015. Academic performance in numeracy, reading, and English was measured and a composite score was calculated. Children were split into low, middle and high academic performing tertiles. 3-way-interactions for group (intervention, control)∗gender (boys, girls)∗academic performance (tertiles) were investigated using mixed model regression. There was a significant, 3-way-interaction (p=0.044). Both boys (ES=0.11) and girls (ES=0.18) in the low performing tertile had a similar beneficial trend. In contrast, middle (ES=0.03) and high performing boys (ES=0.09) responded with small beneficial trends, while middle (ES=-0.11) and high performing girls (ES=-0.06) responded with negative trends. ASK was associated with a significant increase in academic performance for low performing children. It is likely that active learning benefited children most in need of adapted education but it may have a null or negative effect for those girls who are already performing well in the sedentary classroom. Differences in gendered responses are discussed as a possible explanation for these results.Trial Registration: Clinicaltrials.gov registry, trial registration number: NCT02132494. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Executive function and metacognition are higher-order cognitive processes that undergo steady improvements throughout childhood. They are highly relevant to daily functioning in various domains, including academic achievement. Both concepts have been intensively researched, but surprisingly little literature has sought to connect them theoretically and empirically. In the present review, I elaborate on the similarities between these concepts from a developmental perspective, including the definitions, developmental timetables, factors that lead to changes over time, and relations to academic achievement and intelligence. Simultaneously, the differences between these two domains of cognitive development are discussed. These include, in particular, the relative neglect of quantifying monitoring within research on executive functions and the disregard for the neuropsychological underpinnings of metacognition. Finally, this paper presents several avenues for future research and proposes a possible unifying framework of cognitive self-regulation that integrates executive function and metacognition and may lead to a better understanding of the emergence of cognitive self-regulation in development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we use new data on Danish monozygotic (MZ) twins to analyze the effect of cultural capital on educational success. We report three main findings. First, cultural capital has a positive direct effect on the likelihood of completing the college-bound track in Danish secondary education. Second, cultural capital leads teachers to form upwardly biased perceptions of children's academic ability, but only when their exposure to children's cultural capital is brief (as in oral and written exams) rather than long (as in grades awarded at the end of the school year). Third, we find that the positive direct effect of cultural capital on educational success is higher for children from high-socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds than for those from low-SES backgrounds. This result suggests that high-SES children are more likely to be in schooling contexts that enable them to convert cultural capital into educational success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzed the effect of summer heat on academic achievement. Summer heat can negatively affect student learning, as previous studies have shown that high temperatures in laboratory settings have a negative effect on cognitive abilities. For this analysis, the test scores of five different cohorts were combined with city-level daily temperature data. To control for unobserved heterogeneity, the test scores of students within the same school were compared over time (school-fixed effects estimation). Summer heat negatively affected student test scores. Specifically, an additional day with a maximum daily temperature exceeding 34 °C (93.2 °F) during the summer, relative to a day with a maximum temperature between 28 °C (82.4 °F) and 30 °C (86 °F), decreased the scores of math and English tests by 0.0042 and 0.0064 standard deviations, respectively. No significant effects were found on the reading test scores. In addition, these effects were larger in relatively cooler cities, but did not differ based on gender. Finally, the previous year's summer also had negative effects on the current year's test scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper quantifies whether compulsory schooling laws are still effective in the 21st century and if so, to what extent the school compulsion continues to influence individuals’ educational achievement and labor market earnings. Using American Community Survey, I find that compulsory schooling laws were effective for the white men and women born in the 1930s and 1940s in the U.S.; however, they no longer produce the same seasonality effects on the educational attainment of the white cohorts who completed their educational attainment in the 2000s. I also find that the school compulsion was not binding for the older African American cohorts; however, they were effective in keeping the younger African American men at school longer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In performance-based measures of implicit contingency learning, learning effects have been observed very early in the task (e.g., within a few trials) and remain stable throughout the experiment. This has been taken to suggest that the contingency knowledge underlying the learning effects is formed almost instantly and does not develop further across trials. One potential concern with the available evidence is that response times are overall much slower early on in an experiment and speed up over practice in a decelerating function. If learning effects scale with overall response time, then learning effects observed early on in an experiment might be artificially inflated. In the current report with the colour-word contingency learning paradigm, participants were given an extended practice phase before introducing predictive stimuli (words). Thus, learning could be assessed after the large practice speedup in performance had already occurred. In one experiment, the contingency learning effect was found to again be fairly stable, but with a hint of an increasing effect with time. In a second experiment, words were pre-exposed in a neutral hue before being coloured. This increased the magnitude of the learning effect, suggesting a preparation time benefit. More importantly, the contingency learning effect was observed to increase over time. In a third experiment, we assessed unlearning rates when the contingency was removed, and relearning when the contingencies were reintroduced. The results revealed a cumulative effect of contingencies acquired across multiple blocks. In sum, the evidence reported in this paper shows that, contrary to previous claims, implicit contingency learning is cumulative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on depression and education usually focuses on a unidirectional relationship. This paper proposes a reciprocal relationship, simultaneously estimating the effects of depression on education and of education on depression. China, which has the world's largest education system, is used as a case study. This paper applies structural equation modeling to three datasets: the China Family Panel Studies, the China Education Panel Survey, and the Gansu Survey of Children and Families. Analyses reveal a reciprocal and negative relationship between depression and educational outcomes. Specifically, early depression reduces later educational achievement, and higher educational achievement also lowers the level of subsequent depression by resulting in less peers' unfriendliness, less pressure from parents' expectations, and less teachers' criticism. More time spent on studies is not associated with higher educational achievement but significantly increases the level of depression. Children from lower SES families bear more pressure and spend more time on studies, which does not correspond to higher educational achievement but rather to higher levels of depression. In the long term, prior depression lowers educational attainment and, after controlling for prior depression, lower educational attainment is also associated with higher levels of subsequent depression. This paper shows that the lower achievers, not the high achievers, bear the major psychological burden of the education system's quest to produce high achievement. This situation reinforces these students' educational disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Working memory training is not a domain-general but a domain-specific concept. • The transfer effects of working memory training depend on the overlap of tasks elements. • Academic-working memory tasks and linking strategy are important in producing working memory training transfer effects. • Domain-specific working memory has promising effects on academic performance among early/middle childhood. Converging evidence suggests that traditional domain-general working memory (WM) training does not have reliable far-transfer effects, but produces reliable, modest near-transfer effects on structurally similar untrained tasks. Given the critical role of WM in academic development, WM training that incorporates task-specific features may maximize training effects on academic outcomes. In this theory paper, we discuss the training to emphasize the domain-specific function of WM highlighted by recent WM models. That is, WM should be better attuned to the materials being learned through enhancing strategies of linking together WM with the long-term memory knowledge, rather than only the enhancement of a "domain-general" attentional control overall. We provided two example training routes that emphasize explicit instruction and practice on WM-academic tasks (i.e., academic tasks that can be performed using a WM training paradigm) and task-linking strategies (i.e., strategies that can be used in both academic tasks and WM tasks to improve performance efficiency). We also review recent relevant intervention studies that are in line with this approach and report promising effects on academic outcomes. Implications for future studies are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary youth spend increasingly longer time in the educational system, where their career pursuits become closely intertwined with their educational goals. As career development is a life-long process, adolescents start working on their careers long before they engage in actual work behaviors. Therefore, in order for school to adaptively prepare youth for their future work lives, career adaptability and academic achievement should be reciprocally and positively linked throughout adolescence. To date, more longitudinal proof for these relations is needed. To address this shortcoming, we investigated cross-lagged associations between these two constructs in a three-wave longitudinal study, testing the moderating role of adolescents' gender, school type, and age. Participants were 1151 adolescents (41.3% boys), who completed the same paper-and-pencil measure three times across an academic year. Results showed positive reciprocal associations between career concern and academic achievement (i.e., Grand Point Average). This indicates that adolescents with a strong future orientation, who were already invested in career planning activities tended to perform better in school and vice-versa, high academic achievement further strengthened adolescents' positive outlooks on their vocational future. We also detected positive unidirectional links from academic achievement to career control and career confidence across one academic year. Interestingly, we did not find significant longitudinal links between career curiosity and academic achievement. These patterns of longitudinal relations applied equally to boys and girls, to those attending university-preparatory and work-bound schools, and to early-to-middle and middle-to-late adolescents. Research and applied implications of these findings are detailed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has reported the positive effect of verbal encouragement/reinforcement on participants’ performance. However, most of the time, verbal encouragement/reinforcement was given several times during the task, and the encouragement used was often a personal trait (“You’re good, “you’re clever”, etc.). In the first study, 3–5 year-old children were asked to find an image which was not included in a group of images that had been presented several minutes before. The instructor told half of the children “You are a clever boy/girl. You can succeed” (verbal encouragement condition), while she said nothing to the other half of the children (control condition). It was reported that 77% of the children responded correctly in the verbal encouragement condition while only 30% responded correctly in the control condition. In the second study, 8–9 year-old children were asked to do an alphabetical order task using the names of 7 well-known fruits printed on a paper. After the children viewed the words and were given the instructions, the teacher told half of the children “I am sure you’ll succeed” (verbal encouragement condition) while she said nothing to the other half of the children (control condition). Results showed that more children succeeded in the verbal encouragement condition (82%) than in the control condition (47%). The importance of verbal reinforcement for teachers is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes an exploration of the relationship between mathematic achievement and the school health environment relative to policy-driven changes in the school setting, specifically with regard to physical education/physical activity. Using school-level data, the authors seek to understand the relationship between mathematics achievement and the school health environment and physical education minutes. This work provides a description of the aspects of the school health environment, an exploration of the interrelationships between school health and student achievement, and an assessment of the effects of the school health policy and practice on student performance and health status. Based on these findings, we identify additional research necessary to describe the relationship between obesity and learning in children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current educational policies in the United States attempt to boost student achievement and promote equality by intensifying the curriculum and exposing students to more advanced coursework. This paper investigates the relationship between one such effort – California’s push to enroll all 8th grade students in Algebra – and the distribution of student achievement. We suggest that this effort is an instance of a “collective effects” problem, where the population-level effects of a policy are different from its effects at the individual level. In such contexts, we argue that it is important to consider broader population effects as well as the difference between “treated” and “untreated” individuals. To do so, we present differences in inverse propensity score weighted distributions investigating how this curricular policy changed the distribution of student achievement. We find that California’s attempt to intensify the curriculum did not raise test scores at the bottom of the distribution, but did lower scores at the top of the distribution. These results highlight the efficacy of inverse propensity score weighting approaches for examining distributional differences, and provide a cautionary tale for curricular intensification efforts and other policies with collective effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research has fully documented that at University, social-class background affects one's perception of his or her fitting in within the system. The present paper tests social class and academic performance as predictors of performance-avoidance goal endorsement (i.e., trying to avoid performing poorly) in a psychology university context. We argue that first-generation students are achieving an upward mobility – a process that is costly, especially for those closer to achieving it (i.e., high achievers). In three classroom context studies, students reported their performance-avoidance goals. Their previous academic achievements as well as their parental level of education were examined as predictors of these goals. The results of the three studies demonstrated that the higher their academic level, the more first-generation students endorsed performance-avoidance goals compared with continuing-generation students. The results are discussed with regard to the upward mobility process that these students are about to achieve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Learning disabilities (LD) are one of the most frequent problems for elementary school-aged children. In this paper, event-related EEG oscillations to semantically related and unrelated pairs of words were studied in a group of 18 children with LD not otherwise specified (LD-NOS) and in 16 children with normal academic achievement. We propose that EEG oscillations may be different in LD NOS children versus normal control children that may explain some of the deficits observed in the LD-NOS group. The EEGs were recorded using the 10/20 system. EEG segments were edited by visual inspection 1000ms before and after the stimulus, and only correct responses were considered in the analysis. Time–frequency (1–50Hz) topographic maps were obtained for the increases and decreases of power after the event with respect to the pre-stimulus average values. Significant differences between groups were observed in the behavioral responses. LD-NOS children show less number of correct responses and more omissions and false alarms than the control group. The event-induced EEG responses showed significant differences between groups. The control group showed greater power increases in the frequencies 1–6Hz than the LD-NOS group from 300 to 700ms. These differences were mainly observed in frontal regions, both to related and non-related words. This was interpreted as a deficit in attention, both to internal and external events, deficits in activation of working memory and deficits in encoding and memory retrieval in the LD-NOS children. Differences between groups were also observed in the suppression of alpha and beta rhythms in the occipital regions to related words in frequencies between 8 and 17Hz from 450 to 750ms. LD-NOS children showed shorter durations of the decreases in power than the control group. These results suggest also deficits in attention and memory retrieval. It may be concluded that LD-NOS children showed physiological differences from normal children that may explain their cognitive deficiencies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A popular explanation for race and ethnic disparities in academic achievement is that minorities are exposed to different peers and have different opportunities to make friends with high-achievers. Although we know that adolescents from different race and ethnic groups attend different schools and that they choose different friends, we do not know how these different opportunities affect the friends they make. This paper fills this gap by studying how the opportunities within adolescents’ schools affect race and ethnic differences in the academic characteristics of friends. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and the conditional logit and opportunities framework, I account for adolescents’ different opportunities to make friends both within and across schools. Ignoring their different opportunities, Black and Latino adolescents’ nominated friends have significantly lower levels of achievement than white adolescents. After accounting for their different opportunities to make friends within and between schools, race and ethnic differences in the achievement characteristics of friends disappear. If Black and Latino adolescents’ opportunity structures were identical to white adolescents’, their probabilities of nominating high-achieving friends would not differ. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The degree to which children grow up in crowded housing is a neglected but potentially important aspect of social inequality. Poor living conditions can serve as a mechanism of social stratification, affecting children’s wellbeing and resulting in the intergenerational transmission of social inequality. This paper reports an investigation of housing crowding on children’s academic achievement, behavior, and health in the US and Los Angeles, a city with atypically high levels of crowding. We use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics’ Child Development Supplement and the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey to explore the effect of living in a crowded home on an array of child wellbeing indicators. We find that several dimensions of children’s wellbeing suffer when exposed to crowded living conditions, particularly in Los Angeles, even after controlling for socioeconomic status. The negative effects on children raised in crowded homes can persist throughout life, affecting their future socioeconomic status and adult wellbeing. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper investigates the relationships among neighborhood characteristics, education-related parental practices, and children’s academic achievement during a critical but under-studied stage of children’s educational trajectories – the elementary school years. Using a large, nationally representative database of American elementary school students – the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K) – and contextual data from the 2000 US Census, we examine parental practices and neighborhood characteristics at the beginning of children’s school careers (grades K-1) and their associations with math achievement through the end of the 5th grade. Findings: Net of family-level characteristics, higher levels of early education-oriented parental practices were associated with higher mathematics achievement at the end of 5th grade, while neighborhood disadvantage was associated with lower 5th grade math achievement. Families residing in high poverty, high unemployment, low-education neighborhoods employed fewer education-oriented practices with their kindergarten-first grade children, but the positive effect of such parental practices on children’s mathematics achievement was stronger for children who live in disadvantaged neighborhoods. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Research and theorizing on executive function (EF) in childhood has been disproportionately focused on preschool age children. This review paper outlines the importance of examining EF throughout childhood, and even across the lifespan. First, examining EF in older children can address the question of whether EF is a unitary construct. The relations among the EF components, particularly as they are recruited for complex tasks, appear to change over the course of development. Second, much of the development of EF, especially working memory, shifting, and planning, occurs after age 5. Third, important applications of EF research concern the role of school-age children’s EF in various aspects of school performance, as well as social functioning and emotional control. Future research needs to examine a more complete developmental span, from early childhood through late adulthood, in order to address developmental issues adequately. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper adopts a potential outcome approach to identify and estimate the average treatment effect of attending an elite college on educational and career achievement. A central purpose is to compare the estimates yielded by regression and matching methods of adjusting for the endogeneity of elite college attendance. The analysis follows a high school graduation and college entry cohort across four decades of labor force participation, and estimates elite college effects on educational attainment, occupational socioeconomic status at early-, mid-, and late-career, and wages at mid- and late-career. The findings suggest that attending an elite college yields an advantage with respect to educational achievement and occupational status; results for wages are mixed. One prominent pattern is that the returns to attending an elite college for those who did attend are small by comparison to those that would have been achieved by otherwise equivalent students who attended non-elite institutions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Societal variations in the organization of educational institutions are thought to affect the distribution of students into levels of educational achievement. This paper analyzes the diverging achievements of British and American cohorts as they pass through secondary and post-secondary education. The ways students' locations in the systems' structures deflect their achievements are charted, and the cumulative effects of those deflections between the ages of 16 and 28 are estimated. Despite the more stratified and standardized organization of the British educational system, and despite its sharper differentiation between academic and vocational credentials, the cumulative deflections during these years are greater in the United States. Explaining this outcome requires an understanding of both organizational and normative differences between the two systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the role of emotions in academic settings, especially in how emotions shape student engagement and learning. This special issue highlights new research in this area and aims to inspire others to join us in conducting empirical research on emotions in education. Using a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives, all contributions share a unique focus on the linkages between students’ emotions and their academic engagement. What is particularly important about this set of papers is their consideration of how and why student emotions emerge, how these emotions in turn shape students’ engagement and achievement, and the ways in which students can harness emotional resources for facilitating their engagement and achievement. In this introduction to the special issue, we briefly highlight each of the manuscripts and suggest several directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Interventions based on more accurate developmental theories could be more successful. • The Opportunity-Propensity (O-P) framework is proposed as such a theory. • O-P studies show that 5 child characteristics are strong predictors of achievement. • Socio-economic status (SES) strongly predicts child characteristics not opportunities. • Gender and race explain very little variance when SES and propensities are controlled. The present paper explores the potential utility of Opportunity-Propensity (O-P) frameworks for explaining multiple developmental outcomes such as individual and group differences in the development of academic skills, language skills, and social skills. To illustrate the approach, the author summarizes the historical development of the O-P framework and describes several of the most important findings related to academic skills. It is argued that some of these findings, if verified in RCTs, challenge the assumptions of policymakers and could provide an explanation as to why so many educational reforms have not been successful in closing the achievement gap. The concluding section focuses on describing next steps in theory development that could eventually lead to the creation of intervention strategies that could be more likely to be successful than prior attempts, and provides suggestions for further research to (a) identify additional predictors of achievement, (b) develop more precise assessments of constructs, (c) more fully explore the mechanisms by which variables such as socio-economic status have their effects, and (d) develop O-P analyses of other developmental outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Performance goals aid achievement if teachers are clear about how to succeed. • Mastery goals harm achievement if exams are closed rather than open-ended exams. • Exam difficulty does not moderate either goal's effects on achievement. • Surface or deep studying strategies does not explain either goal's effects. The most surprising and controversial finding in achievement goal research is that performance goals predict academic achievement more reliably than do mastery goals. This paper reviews and tests multiple explanations for those effects. Each assumes that either goal can facilitate achievement under particular learning conditions. The challenge framework posits that performance goals facilitate achievement only on simple tasks, and that mastery goals do so on challenging tasks. The depth of learning framework posits that performance goals facilitate achievement only when assignments assess superficial topic knowledge, and that mastery goals do so when assignments assess deeper knowledge. The learning agenda framework posits that performance goals facilitate achievement only if task demands are clear, and that mastery goals can do so if students' interests match the core topics assessed on assignments. In a test of these frameworks, university students from numerous courses reported their achievement goals and study strategies for an upcoming exam. Exams served as the measure of academic achievement and were also coded for features relevant to each framework's hypothesized moderator variable. Analyses supported only the learning agenda framework. Discussion suggests additional ways to test each framework and considers implications for teachers and goal theorists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Current literature supports the link between physical activity (PA) or fitness and a child''s ability to achieve academically; however, little structured activity time is incorporated into elementary school classrooms. This paper explores the impact of a classroom-based PA program, TAKE 10!, and health–academic integration through existing state and federal policy and programming. Methods: Evidence from journal articles, published abstracts, and reports were examined to summarize the impact of TAKE 10! on student health and other outcomes. This paper reviews 10 years of TAKE 10! studies and makes recommendations for future research. Results: Teachers are willing and able to implement classroom-based PA integrated with grade-specific lessons (4.2days/wk). Children participating in the TAKE 10! program experience higher PA levels (13%>), reduced time-off-task (20.5%), and improved reading, math, spelling and composite scores (p<0.01). Furthermore, students achieved moderate energy expenditure levels (6.16 to 6.42 METs) and studies suggest that BMI may be positively impacted (decreases in BMI z score over 2 years [P<0.01]). Conclusion: TAKE 10! demonstrates that integrating movement with academics in elementary school classrooms is feasible, helps students focus on learning, and enables them to realize improved PA levels while also helping schools achieve wellness policies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article focuses on issues related to motivation and education discussed in the present issue of this journal. Over the years, motivation theory has made its presence felt in the field of education reseach. The journal presents papers which analyze the motivational terminology in the area of academic achievement.