







































 

 

 

 

 

How Does Physical Exercise Affect 

Academic Performance? The Mediating 

Role of Non-Cognitive Abilities

Wenye Li,
1
 Jijun Yao,

1
 Shike Zhou

2
 

 
1. Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China  

2. Jiangsu Institute of Education Science, Nanjing 210013, China 

Abstract. Previous studies have found that good physical exercise can 
promote academic performance, but the underlying mechanism behind 

this lacks large-scale empirical data. Based on this, we used the 2020 

Jiangsu Province academic quality monitoring data to construct an OLS 
regression. Then, the non-cognitive abilities variable was built with the 

NEO-FFI Theory, and the mediation effect diagram was drawn through 

the Amos22.0 software. The study found that: (i) Physical exercise 
brought academic improvement to elementary and middle school stu-

dents. (ii) The influence mechanism of physical exercise was different 
between elementary school and middle school. Students at the elemen-

tary school were directly and indirectly affected. (iii) In non-cognitive 

specific dimensions, openness played a significant and great mediating 
role. 

Best Evidence in Chinese Education 2021; 8(2):1103-1120. 

Doi: 10.15354/bece.21.or046. 

How to Cite: Li, H., Yao J., & Zhou, S. (2021). How does physical exercise affect 

academic performance? The mediating role of non-cognitive abilities. Best Evidence 

in Chinese Education, 8(2):1103-1120. 

Keywords: Physical Exercise; Non-Cognitive Abilities; Openness; Mediating Ef-

fect

 
 
 
 
 



Li, et al. How Does Physical Exercise Affect Academic Performance? 

Vol.8, No.2, 2021 1104 

Literature Review and Questions 

NHANCING the physique of the national citizen has always been a livelihood 

issue of the country’s focus. As an essential means, physical exercise has been 

highly valued at different times. Since the launch of “Sunshine Sports” in 2007, 

the value of physical exercise has been universally recognized. However, the 

question parents and teachers are more concerned about is if physical exercise can pro-

mote the improvement of academic performance and that is still unclear. Physical exer-

cise can strengthen the body, but spend time on physical exercise instead of extracurric-

ular learning, parents will inevitably worry that the physical exercise “occupies” the 

study time and causes children’s academic performance to decline. Especially in the 

critical stage of entering higher education, many schools will even suspend physical 

exercise courses and increase academic courses. In recent years, the “quiet large class 

breaks” have also become a microcosm of the embarrassing position of physical exer-

cise. Physical exercise seems to be “unrelated” to improving academic performance, 

and there is a general situation of “emphasizing academics and neglecting sports” 

throughout China. In the embarrassing public opinion, what is the relationship between 

physical exercise and students’ academic performance? High-quality empirical research 

is urgently needed to find the answer to it. Especially in the context of reducing stu-

dent’s burdens and increasing students’ efficiency, what physical exercise can bring to 

education is related to every student, parent, and educator. 
The discussion on the relationship between physical exercise and students’ ac-

ademic performance can be traced back to the 1950s. Based on the sample data of stu-

dents in third and fifth grades, Gleason et al. (1958) found a weak correlation between 

physical exercise and students’ academic performance. Subsequent studies have mostly 

adopted experimental research methods and found that physical exercise can promote 

academic performance to a certain extent. Such studies were often based on physiology 

or psychology for theoretical construction. From the perspective of Arousal Theory, it 

was believed that the physical exercise that students engage in could effectively im-

prove their brain’s execution level and make them have better task performance. How- 

 
 
 

 

About the Authors: Wenye Li, Graduate Student, School of Educational Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nan-
jing 210023, Jiangsu, China. E-mail: 841659607@qq.com 

Shike Zhou, Senior Teacher of Middle School, Jiangsu Institute of Education Science, Nanjing 210013, Jiangsu, 
China. E-mail: jyszsk@163.com 

Correspondence to: Jijun Yao, Professor, School of Educational Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 
210023, Jiangsu, China. E-mail: yaojijun_njnu@163.com 

Funding: This research is the phased result of the “Research on the Relationship between Physical Exercise and 

Student Development” (No.: KYCX21_1301) of the Jiangsu Province Graduate Research and Practice Innovation 
Program. This study was supported by the Jiangsu Provincial Superior Discipline Construction Project (PAPD). 

Conflict of Interests: None. 
 

© 2021 Insights Publisher. All rights reserved. 

Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Crea-

tive Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-

nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided 

the original work is attributed by the Insights Publisher. 

E 

mailto:841659607@qq.com
mailto:jyszsk@163.com
mailto:yaojijun_njnu@163.com


Li, et al. How Does Physical Exercise Affect Academic Performance? 

Vol.8, No. 2, 2021 1105 

ever, the control of confounding variables in this kind of study was not comprehensive, 

and the attributes of a single discipline were evident. Thus, it had failed to achieve the 

intersection and breakthrough of theories between disciplines. 

With the development of measurement technology and the continuous progress 

of cognitive psychology and neurobiology, the studies on the relationship between 

physical exercise and the academic performance had become more systematic and ma-

ture. On the basis of controlling some of the confounding variables, many researchers 

have found that students engaging in specific physical exercises can effectively improve 

their cognitive abilities or academic performance. The value of physical exercise in ed-

ucation quality and fairness has been effectively demonstrated. For example, Fang Lim-

ing, based on adolescent samples in the CEPS database, used the PSM method to con-

trol the endogeneity of the samples and found that physical exercise can not only im-

prove the academic performance of adolescents but also effectively improve the aca-

demic performance of students from economically disadvantaged families and achieve 

educational equity. Such findings have also been verified in the study of Fang Chao et 

al. (2021). Quantile regression results found that physical exercise can reduce the dif-

ference between high and low quantile students and has a fair value that cannot be ig-

nored. In addition, many researchers based on the sampling of regional samples also 

found that the frequency or duration of physical exercises of students was highly corre-

lated with academic performance. The meta-analysis results also showed that allowing 

students to engage in physical exercise is conducive to improved academic performance. 

The studies, as mentioned above, have formed two sets of mechanisms of phys-

iology and psychology in terms of the influence mechanism of physical exercise. The 

former emphasized the “strengthening” of physical exercise and believed that students 

improve their health through physical exercise and thus improve their academic perfor-

mance. For example, Zhang et al. (2016) found that physical exercise can improve the 

quality of sleep of students and improve the academic performance of high school stu-

dents. The latter focuses on the “mental health” effect of physical exercise. It was be-

lieved that physical exercise effectively relieves students’ inner pressure and improves 

self-efficacy, which in turn enhances classroom performance and promotes academic 

performance. For example, the study of Zhang et al. (2021) selected peer relationship 

and self-confidence as the mediating variables and found that physical exercise promot-

ed the improvement of both and thereby improved academic performance. Zhou (2018) 

used self-esteem as an intermediary variable and found that it played an essential role 

between physical exercise and academic achievement of college students. 

Taken together, the existing research has provided sufficient evidence for the 

positive effects of physical exercise. However, there are still apparent shortcomings 

behind these pieces of evidence. On the one hand, the sample size was not enough, and 

high-quality, large-scale data analysis was still needed to verify this positive effect. On 

the other hand, many studies were not adequate in controlling confounding variables. 

They failed to control variables such as family background, which may cause bias in the 

regression results. In terms of influence mechanism, there may be multiple influence 

paths between physical exercise and academic performance. Many studies often select a 



Li, et al. How Does Physical Exercise Affect Academic Performance? 

Vol.8, No. 2, 2021 1106 

single intermediary variable. Most of them were psychological or physical variables 

related to cognitive ability but ignored the non-cognitive abilities highly correlated with 

students’ academic performance. As a concept corresponding to cognitive abilities that 

emerged during the development of human capital theory, non-cognitive abilities were 

often regarded as critical abilities in the 21st century (Huang et al., 2017; Xu, 2017). In 

empirical research, many empirical studies had also selected non-cognitive abilities as 

the core explanatory variable. However, the theoretical frameworks they were based on 

are relatively vague. They often defined self-efficacy, peer relationships, and other ex-

istences unrelated to cognition in a broad sense as non-cognitive abilities. These con-

cepts did not have the attribute of “ability.” Therefore, in terms of mechanism research, 

the number of existing studies on the mediating variables is insufficient. The theory is 

not yet systematic, and the exploration of non-cognitive abilities is not comprehensive. 

Based on this, this study will adopt the more popular NEO-FFI Theory (Neuroticism 

Extraversion Openness Five Factor Inventory). We subdivided non-cognitive abilities 

into openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism (Costa et 

al.,1985; Meng, 2003; Wang, 1994). The following questions are verified and discussed 

by constructing the non-cognitive abilities variable and assuming it as a mediating vari-

able between physical exercise and academic performance. 

1. Can physical exercise improve students’ academic performance? 

2. Can physical exercise promote students’ academic performance through non-

cognitive abilities? 

3. Which non-cognitive abilities does physical exercise mainly use to promote stu-

dents’ academic performance? 

Methodology 

Research Ideas 

This study first verified the relationship between physical exercise and academic per-

formance by constructing a regression model and calculating regression coefficients. 

Subsequently, intermediary variables are included to explore possible influence mecha-

nisms and demonstrate the vital role of non-cognitive abilities in students’ academic 

performance. Finally, the mediation effect is calculated, and the path coefficient dia-

gram is drawn. The effect size of each path is compared to explore the role of each di-

mension in the non-cognitive dimension in more detail. 

Variable Selection 

Core Explanatory Variables 

 Physical Exercise 

Students need to answer the daily physical exercise frequency in this test. They choose 

from five options: “No”, “Less than 1 hour”, “1-2 hours”, “2-3 hours” and “3-5 hours”. 



Li, et al. How Does Physical Exercise Affect Academic Performance? 

Vol.8, No. 2, 2021 1107 

In the elementary school sample, 26.9 percent of students failed to meet the one-hour 

exercise standard while in the middle school sample this accounted for 41.1 percent. 

 Non-Cognitive Abilities 

This study used the NEO-FFI Theory to subdivide sub-cognitive ability into five di-

mensions: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. 

Among them, neuroticism is a negative personality, which has been transformed into an 

upbeat personality. Openness mainly refers to students’ ability to accept new things and 

use methods to solve problems. Conscientiousness primarily refers to the degree of ef-

fort that students have to accomplish their goals and whether they persist in the end. 

Extraversion refers to the enthusiasm and vitality of students, higher extraversion indi-

cates that students have better peer relationships. Agreeableness refers to the ability of 

students to show altruistic behavior. Finally, neuroticism refers to the power of students 

to control emotions. Since the above five dimensions are all latent variables, it isn’t 

easy to measure intuitively. Therefore, the five dimensions were all set with 3-4 ques-

tions for measurement, and the principal component method was used to fit the score. 

The elementary school and middle school samples were tested separately. The α indica-

tors of the five dimensions were all in the interval of [0.6, 0.8], indicating that the data 

has good reliability. In terms of validity, the RMSEA indicators of the five dimensions 

were all less than 0.07, meaning a good fit, and the CFI and TLI are both greater than 

0.9, and the validity is good. More statistics can be found in Table 1. 

 Explained Variable 

The academic performance middle school students participating in were divided into 

Chinese, mathematics, English, biology, geography, and physics; and the elementary 

school was divided into Chinese, mathematics and English. Considering the academic 

burden and other reasons, each student in the middle school only tested two subjects 

and the elementary school only tried one subject. Considering that there are apparent 

differences between subjects, it is impossible to simply take the subject scores of the 

students as the total score. Moreover, regression by the subject may cause the lack of a 

large area of samples. Therefore, after collecting the data, we decided to fit a regression 

model based on other items in the questionnaire that may be related to the results; and 

then performed multiple imputations on the results of the test subjects that the sample 

did not take to generate the general scores. Such methods are often used to deal with 

large areas of missing values in the sample. After getting the results of each subject, 

considering that the policies for the high school entrance examination in various regions 

of Jiangsu Province are different, and the examination methods of biology and geogra-

phy are also different, the middle school’s general scores only used the total scores of 

Chinese, mathematics, English and physics. In contrast, the elementary school used the 

total scores of Chinese, mathematics and English. As a result, the average score of all 

subjects in middle school was 555.22, and the average score of all topics in elementary 

school was 515.19. 



Li, et al. How Does Physical Exercise Affect Academic Performance? 

Vol.8, No. 2, 2021 1108 

 Control Variable 

To avoid missing variables cause biased estimation of regression coefficients, this study 

incorporated students’ family background variables, demographic variables, and school 

background variables into the regression model to control bias. In sociological research, 

students’ stock of family capital can influence students’ academic performance through 

intergenerational inheritance. These capitals cover three forms: economy, culture, and 

society. In this study, we averaged the number of students' reports about the items 

owned by student families and used it as proxy variables of economic capital. Students 

needed to answer the number of particular items (such as televisions, computers, cars, 

etc.) owned by the family. A total of nine questions were set. In terms of society capital, 

using the “Chinese Occupation Classification Dictionary (2015)” as a reference, the 

parents’ occupations were assigned, sorted (scores of 1-8) and standardized, and the 

highest score of the parents was taken as the social capital in the family background. 

Finally, the parents’ academic qualifications represented the cultural capital. First, the 

parents’ academic qualifications were converted into years of education and assigned 

values of 9, 12, 16, and 19. After standardization, the highest scores of both parents 

were taken as the cultural capital of the student’s family. In addition, the gender of stu-

dents was 1 for girls and 0 for boys; the only child status was 0 for only children and 1 

for non-only children. The school type was 1 for public and 0 for private. The school 

area was 1 for urban and 0 for rural areas. The specific sample descriptive statistics 

were shown in Table 1. 

 Model Setting 

This research will first conduct descriptive statistics on samples of the fifth and eighth 

grades in Jiangsu Province, locate the physical exercise situation, and construct an OLS 

regression model, Including core explanatory variables, control variables, and media-

tion variables to analyze the positive effects of physical exercise and the role of non-

cognitive abilities in the impact mechanism. The specific model expression is as follows: 

 

                                                     

 

Among them, Scorei is the average grade of the subject of the i-th student. β1 is 

the regression coefficient of the student’s physical exercise situation. β2 is the regres-

sion coefficient of students’ non-cognitive abilities. β3 is the regression coefficient of 

the control variable. Finally, εi is the residual of the regression equation. 

 Data Source and Processing 

This study used the 2020 monitoring data of students’ academic quality in compulsory 

education in Jiangsu Province. The project is carried out once every two years. Two- 



Li, et al. How Does Physical Exercise Affect Academic Performance? 

Vol.8, No. 2, 2021 1109 

Table 1. Descriptive Statistics. 

Elementary School 
 

Mean Standard Deviation Minimum Maximum 

Only Child 0.63  0.48  1.00  2.00  

PE Time 2.88  0.80  1.00  5.00  

Public School 0.64  0.48  0.00  1.00  

Urban 0.87  0.34  0.00  1.00  

Female  0.48  0.50  0.00  1.00  

Economic Capital 0.03  0.99  -3.04  4.21  

Social Capital 0.69  0.29  0.00  1.00  

Cultural Capital 0.49  0.33  0.00  1.00  

Openness 0.03  1.00  -4.19  0.80  

Responsibility 0.04  0.98  -3.88  0.89  

Extraversion 0.01  1.00  -4.26  0.79  

Pleasant 0.05  0.97  -4.55  0.71  

Neuroticism 0.03  0.98  -3.41  0.84  

Middle School 
 

Mean Standard Deviation Minimum Maximum 

Only Child 0.55  0.50  1.00  2.00  

PE Time 2.62  0.66  1.00  5.00  

Public School 0.86  0.35  0.00  1.00  

Urban 0.66  0.47  0.00  1.00  

Female 0.47  0.50  0.00  1.00  

Economic Capital 0.57  0.10  0.25  1.00  

Social Capital 0.60  0.29  0.00  1.00  

Cultural Capital 0.31  0.30  0.00  1.00  

Openness 0.00  1.00  -3.39  1.16  

Responsibility 0.01  1.00  -2.87  1.49  

Extraversion -0.01  1.00  -3.33  1.38  

Pleasant 0.04  0.94  -4.00  0.98  

Neuroticism -0.01  0.99  -2.41  1.38  

 

 

 

stage stratified sampling was used to conduct a sample survey of students, teachers, and 

school leaders in 13 cities in Jiangsu Province. Among them, a sample of students was 

randomly selected from the sampled schools, and a total of 213,334 questionnaires for 

fifth-grade students and 147,432 questionnaires for ninth-grade students were collected. 

After deleting the samples that failed the polygraph test and missing important infor-

mation, a total of 156,657 valid elementary school questionnaires and 127,738 useful 

student questionnaires from middle school were obtained. 

Results 

Regression Analysis Result of Physical Exercise 

In this study, students’ average scores were selected as dependent variables, and model 

1, model 2, model 3, and model 4 were constructed respectively. Model 1 only incorpo- 



Li, et al. How Does Physical Exercise Affect Academic Performance? 

Vol.8, No. 2, 2021 1110 

Table 2. OLS Regression Results. 

Elementary School 

 
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 

(Constant) 484.50*** 509.99*** 501.13*** 520.70*** 

(0.548) (0.786) (0.867) (0.893) 

Physical Exercise 10.78*** 10.14*** 8.69*** 3.47*** 

(0.184) (0.176) (0.176) (0.185) 

Non-Only Child 
 

-23.48*** -20.74*** -19.81*** 

 
(0.302) (0.303) (0.305) 

Public School 
 

-2.07*** 1.29*** 0.75 

 
(0.307) (0.314) (0.318) 

Urban 
 

19.32*** 13.87*** 12.33*** 

 
(0.534) (0.529) (0.535) 

Female 
 

8.24*** 6.71*** 4.19*** 

 
(0.287) (0.285) (0.289) 

Economic Capital 
  

11.49*** 10.29*** 

  
(0.154) (0.156) 

Social Capital 
  

8.06*** 6.79*** 

  
(0.545) (0.553) 

Cultural Capital 
  

11.06*** 9.51*** 

  
(0.498) (0.505) 

Openness 
   

10.34*** 

   
(0.242) 

Responsibility 
   

4.17*** 

   
(0.229) 

Extraversion 
   

-0.21 

   
(0.245) 

Pleasant 
   

5.76*** 

   
(0.213) 

Neuroticism 
   

0.22 

   
(0.188) 

R² 0.03 0.11 0.17 0.27 

F 3431.12 3236.64 3149.63 2832.05 

Middle School 

 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 

(Constant) 503.42*** 545.11*** 466.53*** 497.41*** 

(0.833) (1.032) (1.534) (1.533) 

Physical Exercise 4.51*** 3.70*** 3.50*** -3.58*** 

(0.309) (0.296) (0.292) (0.296) 

Non-Only Child 
 

-20.90*** -13.41*** -12.42*** 

 
(0.396) (0.398) (0.39) 

Public School 
 

-33.70*** -24.22*** -19.99*** 

 
(0.56) (0.556) (0.544) 

City 
 

20.07*** 10.62*** 10.14*** 

 
(0.418) (0.423) (0.416) 

Female  
 

16.87*** 14.81*** 10.97*** 

 
(0.391) (0.384) (0.385) 

Economic Capital 
  

81.31*** 59.93*** 

  
(2.168) (2.129) 

Social Capital 
  

12.26*** 11.28*** 



Li, et al. How Does Physical Exercise Affect Academic Performance? 

Vol.8, No. 2, 2021 1111 

  
(0.816) (0.801) 

Cultural Capital 
  

44.22*** 36.71*** 

  
(0.807) (0.793) 

Openness 
   

27.95*** 

   
(0.303) 

Responsibility 
   

9.27*** 

   
(0.284) 

Extraversion 
   

-10.49*** 

   
(0.325) 

Pleasant 
   

4.44*** 

   
(0.319) 

Neuroticism 
   

-7.23*** 

   
(0.23) 

R² 0.002 0.09 0.16 0.29 

F 213.088 2288.96 2653.349 3159.02 

Note: () is the standard error of the coefficient; * represents the significance level, where * is P < 0.1, ** is P < 0.05, *** is P < 
0.01. 

 

 

rated physical exercise variables; models 2 and 3 incorporated background control vari-

ables to estimate the positive effects of physical exercise; model 4 incorporated non-

cognitive abilities variables to build a full model, analyzed the positive impact, and ini-

tially discuss the impact mechanism of physical exercise. Before regression, the white 

collinearity test was performed on the sample data. There was no collinearity problem 

between the variables, and there was no obvious heteroscedasticity. The regression co-

efficients and standard errors of the samples are shown in Table 2. 

From the results in Table 2, physical exercise had different effects in elemen-

tary schools and middle schools. In models 1-3, physical exercises all positively pre-

dicted the academic performance of elementary and middle school students. As the 

model variables increased, the regression coefficients decreased. The regression coeffi-

cient in the elementary school sample was always positive; in the middle school sample, 

after adding non-cognitive variables, the student’s academic performance was signifi-

cantly negatively predicted by the physical exercise, the regression coefficient was -

3.60, and the significance level reached 0.01. On the whole, regardless of whether there 

was a mediating effect, the positive impact of physical exercise existed in the elemen-

tary school stage. However, after controlling the influence of background variables and 

non-cognitive abilities in the middle school stage, the positive effect of physical exer-

cise turned into an “inhibition” effect. Each time a student’s physical exercise time was 

increased by one unit, their academic performance dropped by 3.60 points instead. 

Regression Analysis Results of Non-Cognitive Abilities 

In addition to the high correlation between physical exercise and students’ academic 

performance, this research also demonstrated the high correlation between non-

cognitive abilities and academic performance. First of all, from model 4 of the elemen-

tary school and middle school samples, we found that the three dimensions of openness, 



Li, et al. How Does Physical Exercise Affect Academic Performance? 

Vol.8, No. 2, 2021 1112 

conscientiousness and agreeableness all positively and significantly predicted students’ 

academic performance, which was consistent with the results of foreign empirical re-

search. The effect sizes of the three dimensions were further calculated. In the elemen-

tary school sample, the effect sizes of the three dimensions were 0.195, 0.076 and 0.104, 

respectively, while the middle school sample were 0.379, 0.129 and 0.056, respectively. 

The above results showed that non-cognitive abilities could help students improve their 

academic performance. In its interior, the effects of each personality trait were different 

in different stages, but the openness was always in a higher position. That means stu-

dents who is enthusiastic about new things and willing to challenge often promotes aca-

demic performance the most.  

Regression Analysis Results of Other Variables 

In terms of background variables, while controlling for the influence of other variables, 

the results of all models showed that students with non-only-child status had lower aca-

demic performance than students with only-child status. This may be because only-

child families often have more investment space for students’ academic or non-

academic tutoring. In addition, the academic performance of urban students was higher 

than that of rural students, and the regression coefficient interval was located in [9.53, 

19.99], indicating that the issue of regional education equity needs to be improved. Pre-

vious studies had agreed that a good family background would improve students’ aca-

demic performance. In this study, the higher the stock of economic, social, and cultural 

capital of a student’s family, the higher their academic performance would be, con-

sistent with previous research results. 

Analysis of the Impact Mechanism of Physical Exercise 

From the regression coefficients of model 1 to model 4, the coefficient of physical exer-

cise gradually decreased, especially after adding the five dimensions of non-cognitive 

abilities; the coefficients of elementary school and middle school decreased significant-

ly, which preliminarily explained mediating effect statistically. In order to visually pre-

sent the role of each non-cognitive dimension in the influence mechanism, amos22.0 

software was used to construct an intermediary model to draw a path diagram. The re-

gression path diagram is shown in Figure 1. 

From the path diagram of the elementary school sample, the five non-cognitive 

dimensions would be significantly positively predicted by the physical exercise, and the 

regression coefficients were similar. All were significant at the level of 0.01, indicating 

that physical exercise can effectively shape all aspects of personality traits. The second 

half of the path was significant at the 0.01 level. The mediation effect calculation 

showed that the mediation effect of openness, conscientiousness, and agreeableness was 

more prominent, which were 28.43%, 10.95%, and 14.00%, respectively. 

But unlike elementary schools, there were certain differences in the effects of 

physical exercise on the five non-cognitive dimensions in the middle school samples. 

Figure 2 showed that in terms of regression coefficients, the entire five dimensions



Li, et al. How Does Physical Exercise Affect Academic Performance? 

Vol.8, No. 2, 2021 1113 

 
Figure 1. Elementary School Stage Road Map. 

 

 

 

 

 
Figure 2. Middle School Stage Road Map. 

 

 



Li, et al. How Does Physical Exercise Affect Academic Performance? 

Vol.8, No. 2, 2021 1114 

could be affected by physical exercises, which were all significant at the level of 0.01. 

In the second half of the path, the entire dimension could predict academic performance 

while the extraversion and the neuroticism predict negatively. Among them the open-

ness could predict academic performance much more strongly than other dimensions. 

After calculating the mediation effect, the mediation effect of the openness was the 

largest, reaching 41.17%, second of which is extroversion, only reach 13.52%. Consci-

entiousness, agreeableness and neuroticism were 12.45, 6.44% and 8.61%, respectively. 

Moreover, the direct effect is negative. The above results showed that students at the 

elementary school could directly improve academic performance through physical exer-

cise and could also indirectly improve academic performance to a greater extent by 

shaping the personality traits of openness, conscientiousness, and agreeableness. 

Through shaping extraversion and neuroticism personality, physical exercise could indi-

rectly promote academic performance to a lesser degree. However, middle school stu-

dents are under the burden of academic burden, the relationship between academic per-

formance and physical exercise was very delicate. On the one hand, physical exercise 

did not directly promote the improvement of academic performance. On the other hand, 

physical exercise could greatly indirectly promote academic performance by shaping 

openness personality whose mediating effect was more significant than the direct effect 

of physical exercise. 

Discussion 

Physical Exercise Can Directly or Indirectly Promote 

the Improvement of Academic Performance 

“Sports have the power to change the world.” However, physical fitness is just the tip of 

the iceberg of the value of physical exercise. In the regression and mediating effect 

analysis of this study, physical exercise, whether in the elementary school sample or the 

middle school sample, was found to directly or indirectly improve academic perfor-

mance. In the elementary school sample, physical exercise could reduce the burden and 

increase adolescents’ academic work efficiency and alleviate the educational equity 

brought about by the differences in students’ family backgrounds. This was consistent 

with the early research results of Yin et al. (2014), focusing on the positive effects of 

long-term physical exercise. However, we have again demonstrated this view under the 

influence of other variables under better control. In addition, this study also found that 

the direct effect of physical exercise in middle school samples is negative, which is con-

trary to the conclusions of many studies (Fang, 2020; Fang et al., 2021; Lu et al., 2014). 

The reason is that, on the one hand, we believe that this research has selected more in-

termediate variables and brought the variable of non-cognitive abilities into the regres-

sion model. This effectively stripped off the effect of physical exercise statistically and 

obtained more accurate coefficients (Wen et al., 2004; Wen et al., 2014). 

On the other hand, in theory, middle school students and elementary school 

students have differences in psychology, physiology, and cognition, or there may be 



Li, et al. How Does Physical Exercise Affect Academic Performance? 

Vol.8, No. 2, 2021 1115 

two different influence mechanisms. This ultimately leaded to the fact that physical ex-

ercise cannot directly promote students’ academic performance among middle school 

students. However, the mediating effect of non-cognitive abilities allows physical exer-

cise to improve students’ academic performance indirectly. Therefore, physical exercise 

seems to “squeeze” students’ academic time but the relationship between academic time 

and performance is not linear (Shen, 2014; Zou & Tan, 2013). Therefore, finding the 

best advantages of academic time and proper planning of time investment can maximize 

the marginal effect of chemical industry time and effectively exert the positive impact 

of physical exercise. Therefore, the concept of family education should shift from the 

original “focusing on academics and neglecting sports” to “grasp both academics and 

sports”; to achieve mutual complement, reduce burdens and increase efficiency. 

Differences Exist in the Impact Mechanism of Physical 

Exercise between Elementary School and Middle 

School. 

As mentioned above, middle school and elementary school may have two different in-

fluence mechanisms. The academic performance of elementary school students is di-

rectly and positively promoted by physical exercise and can be positively promoted by 

physical exercise through the five non-cognitive dimensions. On the other hand, the 

improvement of the academic performance of middle school students depends on physi-

cal exercise through the indirect effects of openness and agreeableness. Research on the 

role of non-cognitive abilities in the influence mechanism of physical exercise is scarce 

in China. The only study that failed to consider the multidimensional and complex con-

cept of non-cognitive abilities, instead of using a single variable, the results obtained are 

not robust (Dong et al., 2020). This study built the dimension of non-cognitive abilities 

based on the NEO-FFT Theory and deeply analyzed the role of each sub-dimension in 

the influence mechanism. Middle school students rely on indirect effects, and we be-

lieved it might be that middle school students have higher non-cognitive abilities than 

elementary school students. Previous studies found that students of different ages have 

significant differences in the scores of the five dimensions (Nie et al., 2011), which 

made the marginal effect of physical exercise on non-cognitive abilities decline. There-

fore, the promotion of academic performance will not be as apparent as the elementary 

school stage. But on the whole, there is a very high correlation between physical exer-

cise and non-cognitive abilities. Physical exercise effectively shapes students’ positive 

personality, helps students accept new things and better restraint ability, and finally, 

through these abilities, effectively promotes academic performance. 

Open Personality Traits Play a Key Role 

The immense theoretical contribution of this research is to compare the effects of the 

five dimensions of non-cognitive abilities rather than simply discussing whether non-

cognitive skills play a role. At present, the academic circle is still inconclusive as to 



Li, et al. How Does Physical Exercise Affect Academic Performance? 

Vol.8, No. 2, 2021 1116 

which dimension of the five personality can effectively promote the improvement of 

academic performance. Under the premise of the independent variable of physical exer-

cise, this study found that the mediating effect of openness personality is the greatest. 

This can show that physical exercise can help shape students’ openness personalities 

and it also shows that students with more assertive openness personalities are more like-

ly to exert the positive effects of physical exercise. Students with strong openness per-

sonalities can often use “wisdom” to summarize their behavior (Liu, 2001), and they are 

willing to actively seek solutions to problems and win external support (An, 2017). 

Specifically, in this study, students with open personality traits are less afraid of diffi-

culties, have higher expectations of themselves, and can effectively use the learning 

methods learned in the classroom. These positive behaviors can effectively promote the 

improvement of academic performance. In physical exercises, especially in competitive 

sports activities, students have ample opportunities and possibilities to try new methods 

while striving to achieve competitive goals and develop a behavioral pattern that uses 

new methods rationally and is not afraid of difficulties. This experience will also be 

transferred to classroom learning to help them no longer be fearful of the challenges in 

the classroom learning so that they can communicate with teachers and parents, seek 

methodological support, and ultimately achieve the improvement of academic perfor-

mance. In other words, physical exercise can improve academic performance because it 

has the effect of enhancing students’ classroom performance, such as enhancing atten-

tion, which is consistent with the conclusions reached by some foreign studies (Grieco, 

2009; Mahar et al., 2006). 

Study Limitation and Perspective 

This study demonstrated the positive effects of physical exercise and analyzed the me-

diating impact of non-cognitive abilities with the help of the NEO-FFI Theory. In re-

sponse to the three problems established in the study, the following conclusions are 

drawn: physical exercise positively can improve students’ academic performance. Fur-

thermore, this positive effect is achieved by physical exercise through non-cognitive 

abilities. Among them, the openness personalities shaped by physical exercise are the 

most important. But this study still has limitations. 

Firstly, the measurement of NEO-FFI Theory is incomplete compared with the 

measurement in psychological research and includes fewer questions. Secondly, the 

physical exercise variable is set as a level variable, not a continuous variable that can 

characterize the duration, which may make the research results miss some valuable 

findings, such as the optimal interval and nonlinear relationship of physical exercise. 

Thirdly, the direct effect in the midlle school sample was negative, which is somewhat 

contradictory to previous studies. In addition to the mediating effect of non-cognition, 

we believe endogeneity is what makes this happen and some matching methods should 

be used in later studies. 

Conclusion and Suggestion 



Li, et al. How Does Physical Exercise Affect Academic Performance? 

Vol.8, No. 2, 2021 1117 

Change Ideas, and Promote the Development of both 

Academics and Sports 

Health and education are both essential components of human capital, and the two 

should be equally important. This study verified the positive effects of physical exercise. 

Educators need to realize that physical exercise has a role that other academic invest-

ments cannot replace as a health investment. Therefore, we should abandon the educa-

tional concept of “emphasizing academics over sports,” leaving enough time for stu-

dents’ physical exercises and providing necessary support. Parents can regularly partic-

ipate in physical conditioning with their children, enhancing the parent-child relation-

ship and improving their academic performance. Teachers can use sports activities or 

competitions to cultivate children’s competitive spirit to develop positive behavior pat-

terns and personality qualities and thus have better classroom performance.  

Pay Attention to Non-Cognitive Abilities and Open the 

“Black Box” of Physical Exercise 

This research has discovered the mediating role of non-cognitive abilities in the influ-

ence of physical exercise, which shows that in the black box of physical exercise and 

academic performance, previous studies have indeed overlooked some key variables. 

As a critical skill, non-cognitive abilities will be one of the core qualities of future stu-

dents. Therefore, all educators and researchers should integrate students’ non-cognitive 

abilities into scientific research and classroom teaching and strive to find efficient and 

quick ways to improve non-cognitive abilities. 

Pay Attention to the Cultivation of Openness Personali-

ty and Realize Efficient Classroom Learning 

Open personality was found to play an essential role in the influence mechanism of 

physical exercise in this study, and it has a considerable effect on academic perfor-

mance. Therefore, in daily family education, parents should attach importance to com-

munication with their children and allow children to be open to competition and diffi-

culties. Teachers should “teach students how to fish, not just give fish.” It is necessary 

to emphasize the importance of methods and let students develop the habit of using 

strategies to learn knowledge, which improves classroom efficiency and benefits stu-

dents’ long-term development. 

 

 

 

 

 



Li, et al. How Does Physical Exercise Affect Academic Performance? 

Vol.8, No. 2, 2021 1118 

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Received: 30 June 2021 

Revised: 22 July 2021 

Accepted: 22 July 2021 

 

 

 

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	OriginalArticle-JijunYao-BECE_title_July2021
	OriginalArticle-JijunYao--BECE_MaintextJuly2021

