Abstract
Until now, there has been no integrated study of the cognitive, motor and academic developments in children in the Arab world. In this study we investigated gender differences in those three areas in primary school-aged children in Oman and as well as the inter-relations between those three aspects of development. Ninety-five third graders completed four working memory tests, a mental rotation test and a motor test. Furthermore, the marks in math, science and Arabic language were registered. The result showed that there were small gender differences: Girls performed better in one of the working memory tests and boys in the coordination motor test. The study also showed that there were significant correlations between cognitive variables and academic performance, as well as two significant correlations between motor performance and marks in math and science. Marks in math correlated with the performances in the 20 m run and the coordination test, whereas the marks in science correlated with the ball-leg-wall test, the coordination test, and the endurance test. Regression analysis showed that all marks were predicted by the working memory and mental rotation performance as well as the motor ability. This means that academic achievement in Oman could be predicted by basic cognitive as well as motor abilities.
Highlights
The main goal of this study was to investigate the development of primary school-aged children in Oman regarding their cognitive and motor development, as well as the difference between girls and boys in this respect
There was only one significant effect in one working memory measurement that favored girls and one significant effect in the coordination test that favored boys. In both genders, there was a detectable relationship between cognitive measurements and academic achievement, as well as between motor ability and performance in mathematics and science
Children in our study did not show gender differences in paper mental rotation test. They were around 8 years old, while gender differences in such a test are expected to become significantly detectable between the ages 9 and 10 years (Titze et al, 2010; Neuburger et al, 2011)
Summary
The main goal of this study was to investigate the development of primary school-aged children in Oman regarding their cognitive and motor development, as well as the difference between girls and boys in this respect. As far as we know, there have been no such studies on this topic in the Arabic Middle-East area. Those studies are necessary to understand the development of the children in non-western or Asian parts of the world, where almost all studies in this research area were conducted. Development in Omani Children in executive functions (Vestberg et al, 2012) and show higher processing speed (Voss et al, 2010) and better attention performance (Hüttermann and Memmert, 2014) compared to non-athletes. The authors concluded that aerobic fitness may benefit cognitive behavior and brain development
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