Preston, Marcia L.2020-11-042020-11-042020https://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/27935Executive function (EF) skills are important for a wide-range of outcomes, including academic achievement and socio-emotional development. These outcomes promote a call to action to better understand EF and the factors that may influence its development in young children. Previous research with adolescents and adults provides support for a connection between physical activity and improvements in EF (e.g. Best, 2010), though little is known about the impact of physical activity for preschool children. Utilizing a pre-test, intervention, post-test design, the current study examined the immediate impact of cognitively engaging physical activity on three components of preschool children's executive function skills. Based on previous research, this study hypothesized that a combination of physical activity and cognitive engagement (Best, 2010; Diamond, 2015) would result in the greatest improvements on preschool children's working memory, inhibition, and shifting ability compared to activities high in physical activity but low in cognitive engagement, activities low in physical activity but high in cognitive engagement, and activities low in both. ☐ As expected, the cognitively engaging physical activity condition resulted in the greatest immediate improvements in EF, though in some circumstances, the physical activity condition and the cognitive engagement condition were also effective. In addition to confirming the study hypothesis, this study also adds to the existing literature in several ways: the intervention was effective for preschool children and the effects were found immediately after a short intervention. This study was limited by challenges typical of a dissertation study including potential bias from the lead researcher conducting the interventions, small sample sizes in each condition, and the difficulty of selecting measures appropriate for a 2-year age range. Future research should continue to expand on these findings by investigating the cumulative effects of cognitively engaging physical activity, considering the role of these activities in combination with or instead of other preschool curriculum programs that have been shown to benefit executive function skills, and examining the transfer of these immediate improvements in executive function to school-readiness behaviors and academic achievement. While there are questions that remain unanswered, the findings here are especially promising in that children benefitted from the intervention after only twelve minutes of activity, thereby providing further justification for increasing daily opportunities for physical activity and exercise play for preschool children.Acute ExerciseCognitive EngagementExecutive FunctionPhysical ActivityPreschoolThesis1202775985https://doi.org/10.58088/5be7-ee092020-09-06en