Objective. To determine whether active commuting to school (ACS) is associated with academic achievement in scholars of two different school levels: Primary school (PR) and Secondary school (SC).
Method. A total of 2138 students from primary schools (N = 489; 49.1% boys; 9.96 ± 1.23) and secondary schools (N = 1649; 49.7% boys; 14.24 ± 1.26 years) participated in the study. A self-reported questionnaire was used to assess the mode of commuting to and from school. Academic achievement was determined by the school grades obtained in the core subjects (Mathematics and Spanish Language) and others subjects (English Language, Natural Science and Social Science) and the grade point average (GPA) score of the selected subjects. Social Science was not assessed in PR because it is not taught at this school level. Academic achievement was also dichotomized by having a grade ≥ 5, 7 and 9 score.
Results. Passive commuters to school had better grades for Mathematics (P = 0.009), Language (P = 0.001), English (P = 0.002), Natural Science (P = 0.003) and GPA (P = 0.001) than active commuters to school in PR after adjusting for sex, age and school, whereas no differences were found in SC. Passive commuters to school had higher odds of having high grades compared with active commuters to school in PR after adjusting for sex, age and school, whereas no significant associations were found in SC.
Conclusion. The present study shows that ACS is negatively associated with academic achievement in children of PR, but not in adolescents of SC. These findings should be interpreted cautiously, since information about socioeconomic status was not available in this study and it has been shown in previous studies that children from lower socioeconomic families were more prone to commute actively to school, which could have confounded these findings.
Corresponding author. joramor@correo.ugr.es
