Metacognitive process and levels of physical activity in university students

Procesos metacognitivos y niveles de actividad física en estudiantes universitarios

Laura Herrera-Agudelo laura.herrera02@unicatolica.edu.co

Psicóloga, Colombia

Haney Aguirre-Loaiza haney.aguirre@gmail.com

Magíster en Psicología. Psicólogo. Licenciado en Educación Física y Deportes. Docente Universidad Católica de Pereira, Colombia, Colombia

María De Los Ángeles Ortega Díaz mariadelosangelesortega05@gmail.com

Psicóloga, Colombia

Ayda Cristina Rivas Múñoz arivas@unicatolica.edu.co

Magíster en Psicología de la salud. Especialista en Neuropsicología Infantil, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. Psicóloga. Docente Fundación Universitaria Católica Lumen Gentium, Colombia, Colombia

Systematic Physical Activity (SPA) and Physical Exercise are recommended for the wellbeing and quality of life of people, according to the World Health Organization, WHO (2018, 2010). Likewise, there is more and more evidence that supports the effects of the SPA in the face of different psychological and neurocognitive processes throughout the life cycle in healthy samples. (Etnier et al., 2019; McSween et al., 2019; Pontifex et al., 2019; Stern et al., 2019).

Different systematic reviews and meta-analysis have indicated that SPA at moderate intensities improves cognition (Fernandes et al., 2018); likewise, it improves several cognitive domains (e.g., working memory, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, etc.) and metacognitive domains (Álvarez-Bueno et al., 2017). Even neuroimaging techniques indicate that SPA facilitates neu- roplasticity processes and changes in the brain (Gunnell et al., 2018); as well as effects on hippocampal structures (Erickson et al., 2009; Voss et al., 2019) and, consequently, a better capacity of an individual to respond to environmental demands (Hoetting & Roeder, 2013). In elite athletes, favorable changes also seem to be observed since it selectively accelerates motor synchronization (Sysoeva et al., 2013). The SPA with high-intensity interval training (HIIT) methods has positive effects on inhibition in children, adolescents, and adults; and working memory in children (Gejl et al., 2018; Hillman et al., 2019; Hsieh, Chueh, Huang, et al., 2020). Similarly, greater cardiorespiratory fitness is associated with a better performance in inhibitory control tasks (Hsieh, Chueh, Morris, et al., 2020).

Along these lines, promising results for SPA have also been seen in clinical areas. One clear example is in the geriatric population under neurodegenerative conditions where SPA seems to show favorable effects on the different cognitive process (Cassilhas et al., 2016). Furthermore, in patients who consume heroin, a reduction in consumption and an improvement in inhibitory control have been observed (Wang et al., 2020).

Given the above considerations, school environments are promising for promoting SPA (Donnelly et al., 2013, 2016). Interventions and curricular physical education programs appear to be the most effective Metacognition (MC) processes (Álvarez-Bueno et al., 2017). Regarding the SPA in a school environment, Mavilidi et al. (Mavilidi et al., 2015) have compared three conditions of learning-teaching in schoolchildren, showing that the physical exercise condition achieved to improve learning; the physical exercise condition was compared with the condition of gesturing movements and conventional learning strategies. Also, descriptive data have been shown in academic communities of higher education, indicating that those who selfeported a high frequency of SPA are better in inhibitory control, working memory and anticipation capacities (Aguirre-Loaiza, Parra, et al., 2019).

However, the research that has explored the effect of SPA on cognitive processes have focused their hypotheses on clinical models (Bherer et al., 2013; Jia et al., 2019; Lautenschlager et al., 2008; Reimers et al., 2012; Spartano et al., 2019), with relative evidence if the number of research studies that study neurotypical or apparently healthy groups and clinical cases are compared. Even more scarce is the literature regarding the relationship between SPA and Metacognition (MC). Despite this, metacognitive skills can be influenced by environmental factors such as SPA and schooling, in such a way that, if both converge, integral abilities in the human being can be potentiated.

The approach to MC should be considered as a model of cognition, metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive skills (Flavell, 1979). MC is considered very important to self-regulation, i. e, the ability to successfully control thoughts and actions in accordance with the demands of a task (Efklides, 2014). Recently, studies that highlight the importance of the metacognitive process in sports, specifically in endurance performance, have been found. (Brick et al., 2015; 2020). These findings revealed that metacognitive strategies – such as planning, monitoring, reviewing, and evaluating – and metacognitive experiences were fundamental to cognitive control and cognitive strategy use in elite endurance runners (Brick et al., 2020).

It seems that there are differences in the use of MC in both academic and psychomotor tasks (Martini & Shore, 2008); nevertheless, more research on this issue is needed. In this line, the study of the use of metacognition by children with different levels of abilities (experts vs novice) is still a current topic.(Brick et al., 2020). On the other hand, metacognitive skills have been standardized with the use of the MAI - Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (see definition of the construct in the section on techniques and instruments) with factorial structures of knowledge and regulation of cognition (Gutierrez & Montoya, 2020; Schraw & Dennison, 1994)

Regarding with the literature reviewed, the hypothesis that we assume indicates that the levels of SPA show differences in the MC factors. Thus, this work had a twofold purpose: first, to study the effect of SPA levels on metacognition; second, to explore the covariance of gender and age in the interaction of the SPA levels and metacognition.

The descriptive data of the metacognitive second-order factors according to the levels of AFS, are observed in table 2.

Table 2
Comparison between metacognition factors

The Multivariate analysis (MANOVA) showed that the SPA levels affect the second order metacognitive factor, Wilks’ Λ= 959, F=(4, 722)= 2.83, p= .024, ƞp 2 = .021, 1-β=.79, while MANCOVA showed that gender did not affect, Wilks ‘Λ = 992, F=(4, 265)= 1.06, p= .348, ƞp 2 = .008. The inter-subject analysis, indicates an effect of SPA on the knowledge of cognition factor, F=(2, 266)= 3.53, p= .031, ƞp 2 = .0.26, 1-β=.96, and on regulation of cognition factor, F=(2, 266)= 4.78, p= .009, ƞp 2 = .0.35 (see, table 3).

Table 3
Comparative between metacognition factors

The comparison of means and the post-hoc analysis (see, figure 1) showed that in the knowledge of cognition factor the low level of SPA (M= 22.3, DE=1.9) is significantly different regarding with vigorous level (M= 23.0, DE=1.9), p= .035, 95%CI [-1.49, -0.03]. Regarding the regulation of cognition factor, the low SPA level differed with moderate level (M=27.5. DE= 2.3), p= .013, 95%CI [-1.86, -0.16], and vigorous (M=27.3. DE= 2.4), p= .044, 95%CI [-1.72, -0.15].

Figure 1
Comparison between means of the systematic physical activity levels and metacognition factor. Analysis post-hoc corrected with Bonferroni

The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of SPA levels on metacognition; the hypothesis that SPA levels show differences in MC factors was confirmed. The main results indicated that SPA levels significantly affected MC, while gender has no effect according to the analysis of covariance. The main effects indicated that the vigorous level of SPA, compared to the low level of SPA, were significantly better in knowledge of cognition. Similarly, the low levels differ significantly regarding with the moderate and vigorous SPA levels in the regulation of cognition.

This study contributes to the evidence about the effect of SPA on cognitive and metacognitive processes (Álvarez-Bueno et al., 2017; Kramer et al., 2006). These data also indicate that moderate and vigorous SPA levels may have positive effects on metacognitive processes, as has also been indicated by other reports that have systematized effects of the SPA on emotional recognition variables (Aguirre-Loaiza, Arenas, et al., 2019; Brand et al., 2019), psychological processes (Päivärinne et al., 2018), and neurobiological substrates of people (Erickson et al., 2015; Esteban-Cornejo et al., 2019; Mandolesi et al., 2018).

Studying the modulating role of SPA regarding cognition and MC concerning dose-response is one of the important questions in the research line of psychology of physical activity for health (Chang et al., 2015; Chen et al., 2018; Engeroff et al., 2019; Naderi et al., 2019). Likewise, linking other analysis in different population groups (e.g., children, older adults, etc), including comparisons between neurotypical groups and clinical cases (McSween et al., 2019). Thus, moderate and vigorous SPA levels are desired for the improvement of the physical, cognitive and emotional people’s welfare (Hillman et al., 2019; Hillman & Biggan, 2017; Tsukamoto et al., 2016). Additionally, more complex processes such as MC also indicate that these vigorous and moderate SPA levels may be more favorable than low ones (Browne et al., 2017). Consequently, the SPA shows a benefit on the quality of life and healthy lifestyles (Barbosa-Granados & AguirreLoaiza, 2020; Päivärinne et al., 2018).

The linkage between SPA and MC is of interest of the scientific community. In turn, it is promising when educational sectors can be promoters of SPA. In fact, we express that skills such as planning, organization, monitoring, debugging, evaluation, and other learning strategies could also be modulated through the SPA. Under those circumstances, embodied cognition is a theoretical and methodological proposal that complies with these new demands to consider the body as an element of cognition and MC (Schmidt et al., 2019; Shapiro & Spaulding, 2019).

This work has some limitations. The use of selfreport instruments can lead to biased results. Likewise, the sample collected comes from a single university. Finally, it is a cross-sectional and observational design. As mentioned earlier, future works in this line should consider the manipulation and control of the SPA as an independent variable (experimental or quasi-experimental designs). Although a wide variety of people are found in universities, it is appropriate to include other educational centers, including colleges and schools at the primary and secondary level. Subsequently, the use of physical fitness measures and evaluation of endurance, strength, flexibility, etc., as well as MC measures with achievement tasks can yield data with better quality evidence.

However, before the previous limitations, this work has several implications, from which mainly two stand out. On the one hand, theoretically, it is one of the pioneering studies that relates SPA and MC, adding evidence of the favorable effects that SPA has on metacognition. On the other hand, on a practical level, it highlights the importance of SPA on teaching and learning processes throughout the educational platform. However, this study asks for caution in the generalization of its interpretations if the opportunity that the different educational levels have to promote SPA from their curricular structures is confirmed. Sports are also a field to explore in coherence with education and cognitive and metacognitive process. For example, intervention applied of sport psychology in students-athletes (Herrera Velásquez & Gómez-Maquet, 2020). Recently, a study analyzed social cognition in athletes (Aguirre-Loaiza et al., 2020), and social cognition is very important in cognitive processes and MC. Despite this topic is related to physical activity, we think that athletes can be a model, and new studies on sports will help to understand MC applied in other fields.

In conclusion, this study indicates that SPA levels have an effect on MC, with moderate and vigorous levels being favorable. Specifically, the vigorous level shows a better score than the low level in knowledge of cognition. Also, moderate and vigorous levels showed a better score than the low level, in the regulation of cognition.