Table 3.
Summary of effect sizes retrieved from the meta-analyses.
| Author, Year | Results | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall Academic Achievement Effect | Subject-Specific Effect | |||
| Sibley and Etnier, 2003 [39] | Overall ES: g = 0.30 | ●● | Mathematics: g = 0.20 | ● |
| Reading: g = 0.17 | ● | |||
| Fedewa and Ahn, 2011 [27] | Overall ES: g = 0.28 | ●● | Mathematics: g = 0.44, 95% CI [0.27, 0.61] | ●● |
| Total achievement: g = 0.27, 95% CI [0.19, 0.35] | ●● | Reading: g = 0.36, 95% CI [0.14, 0.58] | ●● | |
| Grade point average: g = 0.24, 95% CI [0.11, 0.38] | ●● | Language: g = 0.22, 95% CI [0.10, 0.34] | ●● | |
| Science: g = 0.15, 95% CI [−0.04, 0.34] | ⊘ | |||
| Martin et al., 2014 [28] | Overall ES: SMD = 0.19, 95% CI [−0.36, 0.75] | ⊘ | Mathematics: SMD = 17.94, 95% CI [−18.44, 54.32] | ⊘ |
| Reading: SMD = 0.07, 95% CI [−2.14, 2.28] | ⊘ | |||
| Language: SMD = 27.97, 95% CI [−5.35, 61.29] | ⊘ | |||
| Spruit et al., 2016 [30] | Overall ES: mean d = 0.367, 95% CI [0.038, 0.697] | ●● | N/R | |
| Álvarez-Bueno et al., 2017 [31] | N/R | Mathematics: d = 0.21, 95% CI [0.09, 0.33] | ●● | |
| Reading d = 0.13, 95% CI [0.02, 0.24] | ● | |||
| Language: d = 0.16, 95% CI [−0.06, 0.37] | ⊘ | |||
| Watson et al., 2017 [32] | Overall ES: SMD = 0.28, 95% CI [−0.18, 0.73] | ⊘ | N/R | |
| Progress monitoring: SMD = 1.03, 95% CI [0.22, 1.84] | ●●● | |||
| Standardised test: SMD = −0.13, 95% CI [−0.72, 0.46] | ⊘ | |||
| de Greeff et al., 2018 [33] | Overall ES for acute PA: g = 0.09, 95% CI [−0.05, 0.22] | ⊘ | Mathematics, acute PA: g = −0.18, 95% CI [−0.48, 0.13] | ⊘ |
| Overall ES for chronic PA: g = 0.26, 95% CI [0.02, 0.49] | ●● | Mathematics, chronic PA: g = 0.09, 95% CI [−0.17,0.35] | ⊘ | |
| Reading, acute PA: g = 0.17, 95% CI [−0.08, 0.41] | ⊘ | |||
| Reading, chronic PA: g = 0.15, 95% CI [−0.15, 0.46] | ⊘ | |||
| Spelling, acute PA: g = 0.25, 95% CI [0.03, 0.48] | ●● | |||
| Spelling, chronic PA: g = 0.34, 95% CI [−0.23, 0.92] | ⊘ | |||
| Martin et al., 2018 [34] | N/R | Mathematics: SMD = 0.49, 95% CI [−0.04, 1.01] | ⊘ | |
| Reading: SMD = 0.10, 95% CI [−0.30, 0.49] | ⊘ | |||
| Bedard et al., 2019 [35] | Overall ES: SMD = 0.28, 95% CI [0.09, 0.47] | ●● | Mathematics: SMD = 0.08, 95% CI [−0.09, 0.26] | ⊘ |
| ES for primary school: SMD = 0.21, 95% CI [0.009, 0.340] | ●● | Reading: SMD = 0.04, 95% CI [−0.16, 0.24] | ⊘ | |
| ES for middle school: SMD = −0.01, 95% CI [−0.52, 0.50] | ⊘ | Language: SMD = 1.07, 95% CI [0.42, 1.72] | ●●● | |
| Spelling: SMD = 0.19, 95% CI [−0.02, 0.40] | ⊘ | |||
| Science: SMD = 0.57, 95% CI [−0.46, 1.61] | ⊘ | |||
| Geography: SMD = 0.99, 95% CI [0.02, 1.96] | ●●● | |||
| Phansikar et al., 2019 [24] | N/R | Mathematics: pooled OR = 1.18, 95% CI [0.40, 3.48] | ⊘ | |
| Ruiz-Hermosa et al., 2019 [23] | N/R | Mathematics: d = −0.33, 95% CI [−0.83, 0.17] | ⊘ | |
| Language: d = −0.37, 95% CI [−0.88, 0.15] | ⊘ | |||
| Sneck et al., 2019 [36] | N/R | Mathematics: d = 0.23 | ●● | |
| Dudley and Burden, 2020 [37] | Overall ES: d = 0.14 | ● | N/R | |
CI, Confidence Interval; d, Cohen’s d; g, Hedges’ g; ES, Effect Size; N/R, Not Reported; OR, Odds Ratio; PA, Physical Activity; SMD, Standardised Mean Differences. Effects: ● beneficial; ⊘ null; ● Small effect size; ●● medium effect size; ●●● large effect size.