The Effect of Organized Sports and Wellbeing on Academic Achievements

Organized sports has been associated with (high school) student´s better academic achievement and increased wellbeing. Associating wellbeing with academic performance could indicate that the association between organized sports and academic performance is mediated through wellbeing. This hypothesis was studied by viewing student´s participation in organized sports per week and their wellbeing in school to see if those factors affected their academic achievement in mathematics. Already existing data from ICSRA, collected in the fall 2010 was used. The research sample consisted of 2028 participants in Icelandic high schools, 1078 females and 950 males. The primary effects and synergy of organized sports and wellbeing in school were studied. The result is in accordance with earlier research showing that organized sports and wellbeing have a positive effect on student’s academic performance in mathematics. Students feeling good in school had higher grades in accordance with the number of times they practiced organized sports per week. On the other hand the result showed that organized sports had a positive effect on students that have low wellbeing in school if practiced 2 – 3 times per week. Training more than 3 times per week had negative effect on those student´s grades in mathematics. Keywords: Organized sports, academic performance/achievement, wellbeing, adolescent, high school