• Posted January 22, 2025

Sports Boost Academic Performance in Teens

Want your kid to do well in school?

Get them involved in an organized sport, a new study urges.

Boys and girls are both more likely to earn a high school diploma if they take part in team sports like soccer or artistic sports like dance or gymnastics, researchers reported in a study published recently in the journal Children.

“Structured sports were shown to have long-term benefits on success, reiterating the importance of encouraging play and an active lifestyle throughout childhood,” the study led by senior author Linda Pagani, a professor with the University of Montreal School of Psychoeducation, concluded.

Boys in organized sports were nearly 15% more likely to have a high school diploma by age 20, researchers found.

Likewise, girls who participated in sports were about 7% more likely to get their high school diploma, and also tended to get higher grades.

For the study, researchers analyzed data from a long-term study following the development and well-being of Canadian children from birth to early adulthood. Nearly 2,800 children were included in the study.

The research team looked at the sort of sports and physical activity that kids were involved in at age 12, and compared that to their later academic achievement.

Girls who participated in organized sports had 8% higher grades overall, and those involved in artistic sports had nearly 23% higher grades, results show.

Results also showed that girls who engaged in unstructured physical activity had a nearly 8% decline in their grades by age 18.

“Practicing sports with a coach was associated with higher chances of having graduated from high school by age 20 years for both boys and girls,” the researchers wrote.

The structure provided by being on a team might help explain why these kids do better in school.

“When supervised by an adult and often in teams, sports allow children to develop key skills in various areas -- leadership, behaving in a group, prolonged attention -- that can be transferred to academic classes,” the researchers wrote.

However, not all kids are getting these benefits. Girls were less likely to participate in sports if they came from a low-income, broken or dysfunctional home, results show.

“Important barriers remain to an active lifestyle in childhood, mainly the financial cost and involvement from parents,” researchers wrote. “Notably, many socio-economic factors, such as family income, family configuration, family dysfunction, and maternal education, had an influence on child active leisure.”

More information

The University of San Diego has more on the benefits of youth sports.

SOURCE: University of Montreal, news release, Jan. 17, 2025