This research inventoried adolescents' reports on different developmental and negative experiences in organized youth activities, including extracurricular and community-based activities. High school students' experiences were assessed using a newly developed instrument, the Youth Experiences Survey (YES). These youth reported higher rates of learning experiences in youth activities than in 2 other major contexts of their lives. Youth activities were associated with experiences related to initiative, identity exploration and reflection, emotional learning, developing teamwork skills, and forming ties with community members. The findings also suggest that different youth activities offer distinct patterns of learning experiences. Service, faith-based, community, and vocational activities were reported to be frequent contexts for experiences related to identity, prosocial norms, and links to adults. Sports were a frequent context for those related to identity work and emotional development.

This study inventoried the types of developmental and negative experiences that youth encounter in different categories of extracurricular and community-based organized activities. A representative sample of 2,280 11th graders from 19 diverse high schools responded to a computer-administered protocol. Youth in faith-based activities reported higher rates of experiences related to identity, emotional regulation, and interpersonal development in comparison with other activities. Sports and arts programs stood out as providing more experiences related to development of initiative, although sports were also related to high stress. Service activities were associated with experiences related to development of teamwork, positive relationships, and social capital. Youth reported all of these positive developmental experiences to occur significantly more often in youth programs than during school classes.

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Human systems, including institutional systems and informal social networks, are a major arena of modern life. We argue that distinct forms of pragmatic reasoning or ’strategic thinking‘ are required to exercise agency withinsuch systems. This article explores the development of strategic thinking in a youth activism program in which young people worked for social change. These youth came to understand different human systems, the school board, teachers, and students, and they learned to employ three strategic modes of reasoning: seeking strategic information, framing communications to the audience, and sequential contingency thinking. Although youth described themselves as agents of their development, adults played important roles in supporting their experience of a cycle of experiential learning. These findings suggest how the new cognitive potentials of adolescence allow youth to develop modes of reasoning that expand their capacity to exercise agency over a longer arc of time and across a wider interpersonal space.

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We compared changes in academic achievement across 3 years between children in elementary schools receiving the Academic Achievement and Physical Activity Across the Curriculum intervention (A+PAAC), in which classroom teachers were trained to deliver academic lessons using moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) compared to a non-intervention control. Elementary schools in eastern Kansas (n=17) were cluster randomized to A+PAAC (N=9, target ≥ 100 min/wk.) or control (N=8). Academic achievement (math, reading, spelling) was assessed using the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test-Third Edition (WIAT-III) in a sample of children (A+PAAC = 316, Control = 268) in grades 2 and 3 at baseline (Fall 2011) and repeated each spring across 3 years. On average 55 min/wk. of A+PACC lessons were delivered each week across the intervention. Baseline WIAT-III scores (math, reading, spelling) were significantly higher in students in A+PAAC compared with control schools and improved in both groups across 3 years. However, linear mixed modeling, accounting for baseline between group differences in WIAT-III scores, ethnicity, family income, and cardiovascular fitness, found no significant impact of A+PAAC on any of the academic achievement outcomes as determined by non-significant group by time interactions. A+PAAC neither diminished or improved academic achievement across 3-years in elementary school children compared with controls. Our target of 100 min./wk. of active lessons was not achieved; however, students attending A+PAAC schools received an additional 55 min./wk. of MVPA which may be associated with both physical and mental health benefits, without a reduction in time devoted to academic instruction.

BACKGROUND There is evidence to suggest that increasing physical activity (PA) improves academic achievement (AA) in children and that aerobic fitness is associated with both cognitive function and AA. However, it is not known how these variables are interrelated and analyses with adequate control for socioeconomic variables are needed. It was hypothesized that PA would not directly affect AA but would have an indirect effect on AA through its effect on aerobic fitness. The purpose of this study was to test this hypothesized mediation using path analysis. METHODS Cross-sectional data including AA, aerobic fitness, and daily PA assessed through accelerometry were collected from a large sample (N = 687) of 2nd and 3rd grade students. Demographic data were assessed via parent self-report. RESULTS A total of 401 students wore the accelerometer for at least 10 hours on 3 days or more and were included in the final path analysis to evaluate potential relations among PA (predictor), aerobic fitness (mediator), and WIAT-III subtest standard scores (outcomes; i.e., reading, spelling, and mathematics). Findings showed a direct effect of PA on aerobic fitness (b = 0.009, p < 0.001) and an indirect effect (mediation) of PA via fitness on math achievement (b = 0.003, p < 0.01) after controlling for student’s grade, gender, body mass index, mother’s education level, and household income, as well as intraclass correlations among classes and schools. Neither PA nor aerobic fitness were correlated with WIAT-III reading or spelling scores. CONCLUSIONS Mediation analysis indicated that PA exerted an influence on math achievement through its effects on aerobic fitness but was not associated with reading or spelling achievement scores.

A growing research base suggests the benefits of physical activity (PA) and aerobic fitness for children extend beyond overall health/well-being to include academic achievement (AA). The majority of research studies on relations of PA and fitness with AA have utilized linear-only analytic approaches, thereby precluding the possibility that PA and fitness could have a differing impact on AA for those more/less active or fit. Objective Evaluate both linear and non-linear associations of PA and aerobic fitness with children’s AA among a sample of 687 2nd and 3rd grade students from 17 Midwest schools. Study Design Using baseline data (fall 2011) from a larger 3-year intervention trial, multi-level regression analyses examined the linear and non-linear associations of AA with PA and with PACER laps (i.e., aerobic fitness), controlling for relevant covariates. Results Fitness, but not PA, had a significant quadratic association with both spelling and math achievement. Results indicate that 22–28 laps on the PACER was the point at which the associated increase in achievement per lap plateaued for spelling and math. Conclusions Increasing fitness could potentially have the greatest impact on children’s AA for those below the 50th fitness percentile on the PACER.