School travel modes and children’s spatial cognition

Abstract

This study broadens understanding of how children's travel modes influence the development of their spatial cognition, specifically the development of their spatial representation of home-school routes. Data were collected using a questionnaire survey and a cognitive mapping process at an elementary school in northern Taiwan. The sample, which comprised 521 Grades 1-6 children aged 7-12 years, was analysed through linear regressions. Empirical results indicate that the use of independent, active or non-motorised transportation modes improved the children's spatial cognition regarding their home-school routes. This study not only provides new knowledge about the relationships between travel modes and the spatial cognition of children, but also identifies policy directions in relation to school transportation and the development of spatial cognition in children.

Active Commute in Relation to Cognition and Academic Achievement in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Future Recommendations

“…All of the studies had approximately 50.00% girls as a part of their sample, with the lowest and the highest percentage being 42.47% [44] and 53.26% [42], respectively. Most of the studies (n = 10) were cross-sectional studies [42,[45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53], and two were prospective studies [43,44]. Eight studies accounted for socioeconomic status either by asking their socioeconomic status or by using parental education as a proxy for it.…”

“…All studies measured active commuting in the context of commuting to school; either to, from or both. Seven studies [43,45,[48][49][50][51][52] reported the percentage of their sample that engaged in active commuting, and it ranged from 12.00% to 70.41%.…”

“…Approximately half of the studies (seven) asked about engaging in active commuting only while going to the school [42,43,45,47,48,52,53], in which one of the studies doubled the duration reported, to account for the round trip [47]. The remaining five studies measured active commuting both to and from school [44,46,[49][50][51]. Out of 12 studies, only six studies tried to assess the dose of ACS, albeit only in terms of duration [43,45,47,50,52,53], whereas the other studies measured it as a binary variable.…”

“…There was variation in the way duration was categorized, with three studies categorizing it as <15 min or >15 min [45,52,53], one study categorizing it as <30 min, 30-60 min, and >60 min [50], one study using cut off points as <25 min, 25-50 min and >50 min [43], while one measured it as a continuous variable [45]. Apart from this, only 3 studies assessed ACS within a particular time period (e.g., ACS in the past week) [47][48][49]. Two studies used validated questions, in which one study used two items from a 7-item validated questionnaire about school travel [52], and the other study validated their questions using data from actigraphy [44].…”

“…Including the two studies, a total of eight studies tested the association between active commute and cognition [42,43,45,[47][48][49]52,53], and six studies [44,[46][47][48]50,51] examined the association between active commute and academic achievement. Cognitive outcomes included domains of intelligence [45,52], executive functioning [47,48], information processing speed [47], working memory [43], verbal fluency [53], attention [43], and visuospatial skill [42,49]. The measures used were either computerized objective tasks (e.g., Eriksen flanker task), or paper-and-pencil tasks scored by the researchers (e.g., cognitive maps).…”