The Relationship of Open and Closed Skills with Executive Functions in Athletic Students

Poster Presentation XML
Paper ID : 1634-12THCONG
Oral / Poster Presentation File: sample_template_en_1.jpg 
Authors
University of Bojnord
Abstract
Executive functions refer to a set of mental skills that evolve during childhood and adolescence and undergo change under the influence of some environmental factors. There is strong evidence that confirms the link between physical activity and executive functions. However, there is a paucity of research on the relationship between exercise type and executive functions. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the relationship of open and closed skills with executive functions.
The study population consisted of athletic students in Bojnord who had more than 2 years of sporting experience. The experimental group consist of 20 athletes with open skills and 15 with closed skills athletes and the control group comprised non-athlete students.
The Tower of London test, as one of the important tools for measuring the executive functions of planning, organization and problem solving, and the continuous operation scale, which is the most common laboratory tool in detecting sustained attention were used. Data analysis was conducted using the one-way analysis of variance.
Athletic groups performed significantly better on the London Tower test and Continuous Operation Scale than non-athlete groups (P <0.001). With regard to the planning, problem solving and sustained attention abilities, students with open skills significantly outperformed those with closed skills (P <0.05).
According to the findings of this study, it can be concluded that executive functions are more constructive at the time of practicing open skills. Therefore, it appears that changing the environment and training and applying open skills would probably help further develop and improve students' executive functions.
Keywords
Subjects