The Sunday Times requires a subscription so here is the text word for word:
Want to score highly in your exams? Start scoring on the pitch first. Those who participate in sport in their final year of school achieve an average of 25.4 points more in the Leaving Certificate, a new study by University College Cork (UCC) has found.
The study, published in the Journal of School Health, found individual sports confer an even higher benefit on participants. It concluded that "providing access to a range of team and individual sports throughout the secondary school years may be a beneficial way to improve students' Leaving Certificate results".
The authors noted that international literature has found the personality characteristics of high achievers in education match characteristics valued in sport, including self-discipline, conscientiousness and perseverance. They noted that students who gave up sport in their Leaving Cert school years to "concentrate on their studies" can spend less time studying than those who play either a team or individual sport.
"The conscientious-personality trait characteristic of sports participants in general, and displayed in greater levels in participants of individual sports in particular, may account for this," they found.
The researchers measured the scores of 402 boys graduating from a fee-paying secondary school in Munster between 2008 and 2011. The main sports at the school were rugby, football and rowing. Over the three years, and average of 43% of students played no sport. Of those who did, rugby was the most popular.
The research found the average CAO points obtained by Leaving Cert students not participating in sport was 406.1, while the average for those playing sport was 431.5 of those playing sport, 58.3% exceeded the school average points. Overall the sporty students got an additional 25.4 points.
The authors were particularly surprised to find those participating in rowing gained on average 74 points more than those playing rugby. They cautioned that the sample size for rowing was small- ranging from four students in 2008 to 18 in 2010- so it would be necessary to recreate the research across a range of schools where other sports were played.
"To our knowledge, there has been little research over choice of sport among children, or the influence of choice of sport on educational attainment," they said.
Want to score highly in your exams? Start scoring on the pitch first. Those who participate in sport in their final year of school achieve an average of 25.4 points more in the Leaving Certificate, a new study by University College Cork (UCC) has found.
The study, published in the Journal of School Health, found individual sports confer an even higher benefit on participants. It concluded that "providing access to a range of team and individual sports throughout the secondary school years may be a beneficial way to improve students' Leaving Certificate results".
The authors noted that international literature has found the personality characteristics of high achievers in education match characteristics valued in sport, including self-discipline, conscientiousness and perseverance. They noted that students who gave up sport in their Leaving Cert school years to "concentrate on their studies" can spend less time studying than those who play either a team or individual sport.
"The conscientious-personality trait characteristic of sports participants in general, and displayed in greater levels in participants of individual sports in particular, may account for this," they found.
The researchers measured the scores of 402 boys graduating from a fee-paying secondary school in Munster between 2008 and 2011. The main sports at the school were rugby, football and rowing. Over the three years, and average of 43% of students played no sport. Of those who did, rugby was the most popular.
The research found the average CAO points obtained by Leaving Cert students not participating in sport was 406.1, while the average for those playing sport was 431.5 of those playing sport, 58.3% exceeded the school average points. Overall the sporty students got an additional 25.4 points.
The authors were particularly surprised to find those participating in rowing gained on average 74 points more than those playing rugby. They cautioned that the sample size for rowing was small- ranging from four students in 2008 to 18 in 2010- so it would be necessary to recreate the research across a range of schools where other sports were played.
"To our knowledge, there has been little research over choice of sport among children, or the influence of choice of sport on educational attainment," they said.
Colin Coyle
Some of the international literature:
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