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Original scientific article        DOI: https://doi.org/10.35469/ak.2021.305
received: 2021-12-14                   UDC: 373.3.016:796.011.1
INTEGRATING PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IN MATHEMATICS 
LESSONS – A PILOT STUDY
Erika ČERNIGOJ1, Tadeja VOLMUT2
1 Kindergarten Morje Lucija, Lucija, Slovenia 
2 University of Primorska, Faculty of Education, Koper, Slovenia
Corresponding author:
Erika ČERNIGOJ
Kindergarten Morje Lucija, Lucija, Slovenia
E-mail: erika.cernigoj@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Introduction: The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of teaching math-
ematics through physical activity tasks in the sixth grade. With an accelerometer we 
measured the amount and intensity of physical activity and the time of physical inactiv-
ity during school hours and, particularly, during mathematics lessons. 
Methods: Twenty-two sixth graders from a Slovenian primary school participated 
in the study. The experimental group consisted of 16 students and the control group 
consisted of 6 students. Mathematics lessons were planned together with the mathemat-
ics teacher. This was then carried out in the experimental group. In the control group, 
the mathematics lessons remained unchanged. The intervention lasted for one week. 
For the duration of the experiment, students wore an accelerometer on their right hip 
during school hours.
Results: We found that the experimental group engaged in moderate to vigorous 
intensity physical activity for 7.8 minutes more during mathematics lessons (P < 0.001) 
than the control group. In addition, the experimental group was less physically inactive 
during math lessons for 6.7 minutes (P = 0.001) than the control group. Physical activ-
ity during school hours did not differ between groups (P = 0.284). Nevertheless, the 
experimental group spent slightly more time at moderate to vigorous intensity during 
school hours than the control group and was less physically inactive. 
Conclusion: This study showed that integrating physical activity with mathematics 
in the academic classroom results in increased moderate to vigorous physical activity 
compared to a traditional classroom. Further research should be conducted to deter-
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mine how integrating physical activity with various school subjects affects daily physi-
cal activity in children and adolescents.
Keywords: children, sixth grade, moderate to vigorous intensity, accelerometer
VKLJUČEVANJE GIBALNE AKTIVNOSTI 
V URE MATEMATIKE - PILOTNA ŠTUDIJA
IZVLEČEK
Uvod: Cilj raziskave je bil ugotoviti učinek vključevanja gibalne/športne aktivnosti 
v ure matematike na količino in intenzivnost gibalne/športne aktivnosti učencev med 
šolskim časom in v času ur matematike.
Metode: V raziskavo je bilo vključeno 22 šestošolcev iz slovenske osnove šole. V 
eksperimentalno skupino je bilo vključenih 16 učencev, v kontrolno pa 6. Z učiteljico 
matematike smo načrtovali ure matematike z gibanjem, ki jih je izvajala le v eksperi-
mentalni skupini. Kontrolna skupina pa je imela ure matematike nespremenjeno, na 
klasičen način. Raziskava je trajala en teden in v tem obdobju so učenci v času šolskega 
pouka okoli pasu nosili pripet merilnik pospeška.
Rezultati: Ugotovili smo, da so bili učenci eksperimentalne skupine deležni za 7,8 
minut več srednje do visoke intenzivnosti gibalne/športne aktivnosti v času ur mate-
matike (P <0.001) v primerjavi z učenci kontrolne skupine. Prav tako so bili učenci 
eksperimentalne skupine pri urah matematike za 6.7 minut manj gibalno neaktivni (P 
= 0.001) kot učenci kontrolne skupine. Gibalna/športna aktivnost v celotnem šolskem 
času pa se med skupinama ni razlikovala (P = 0.284). Kljub temu se je  eksperimental-
na skupina v šolskem času zadrževala nekoliko več časa v srednji do visoki intenzivno-
sti ter bila manj gibalno neaktivna kot kontrolna skupina. 
Zaključki: Raziskava je pokazala, da z vključitvijo gibalne/športne aktivnosti v ure 
matematike lahko povečamo čas zadrževanja v srednji do visoki intenzivnosti gibalne/
športne aktivnosti med urami matematike. V prihodnje bi bilo potrebno narediti več 
raziskav o tem, kako vpliva vključitev gibalne/športne aktivnosti v različne šolske pred-
mete na količino in intenzivnost gibalne/športne aktivnosti otrok v šolskem času. 
Ključne besede: učenci, šesti razred, srednja do visoka intenzivnost, merilniki 
pospeška
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INTRODUCTION
Today, children worldwide are not getting enough physical activity (PA) and are 
not meeting the minimum recommendations for moderate to vigorous physical activity 
(MVPA) (Institute of medicine, 2013; NASPE, 2019; Szabo-Reed, Willis, Lee, Hill-
man, Washburn & Donnelly, 2017; WHO, 2019). There is compelling evidence of the 
benefits of regular PA for a variety of health outcomes, from prevention of cardio-
vascular disease (Penedo & Dahn, 2005; Warburton, Nicol & Bredin, 2006), diabe-
tes (Warburton et al., 2006), hypertension (Warburton et al., 2006), to various cancers 
(Penedo & Dahn, 2005). Physical activity has benefits only if done regularly and at an 
appropriate intensity. It is recommended that children engage in physical activity at 
MV intensity for at least 60 minutes each day (Institute of medicine, 2013; NASPE, 
2019; Szabo-Reed et al., 2017; WHO, 2019). Children spend a large amount of time at 
school each day being physically inactive (Szabo-Reed et al., 2017). One of the ways 
to increase physical activity in school is to integrate it into school learning (Institute of 
medicine, 2013; Szabo-Reed et al., 2017). 
All over the world there are various programs that combine physical activity tasks 
with academic learning, such as “Energizers” (Mahar, Murphy, Rowe, Golden, Shields 
& Raedeke, 2006), “I-CAN!” (Bartholomew, Golaszewski et al., 2018; Bartholomew, 
Jowers et al., 2018; Bartholomew, Jowers & Golaszewski, 2019), “Move for Thought” 
(Vazou, Saint-Maurice, Skrade & Welk, 2018; Vazou & Skrade, 2016), “Move-to-Im-
prove” (Dunn, Venturanza, Walsh & Nonas, 2012), “Take10!” (Goh, Hannon, Webster, 
Podlog & Newton, 2016; Reilly, Buskist & Gross, 2012; Stewart, Dennison, Kohl & 
Doyle, 2004), “Activity Bursts in the Classroom for Fitness” (Katz et al., 2010), “In-
stant Recess” (Whitt-Glover, Ham & Yancey, 2011), “Bizzy Break” (Murtagh, Mulvi-
hill & Markey, 2013), “ExCiTE” (Innerd, Azevedo & Batterham, 2019), “FUNtervals” 
(Ma, Mare & Gurd, 2014; Ma, Mare & Gurd, 2015), “Physical Activity across the 
Curriculum” (Donnelly et al., 2009, Donnelly et al., 2017; Donnelly & Lambourne, 
2011; Mullender-Wijnsma, Hartman, De Greeff, Bosker, Doolaard & Visscher, 2015a; 
Szabo-Reed et al., 2017), and “Happy 10” (Liu et al., 2007).
To increase PA during school time among Slovenian children, various programs 
have been used, such as “Aktivna pot v šolo in iz nje – Pešbus” (Institute for spatial 
policies, 2020), “Aktiven šolski odmor” (Jurak et al., 2016), “Minuta za zdravje” (Jurak 
et al., 2016), “Dodatna ura športa v podaljšanem bivanju” (Subotić, 2012), and “Fit 
Slovenija” (Fit Slovenia, 2019). However, there are few studies that have integrated 
physical activity into non-physically-active lessons (Bratož, 2015; Cotič, Ivanič & 
Žakelj, 2010; Rabuza, 2010; Volk, 2015).
Other countries (Donnelly et al., 2009; Innerd et al., 2019; Kibbe et al., 2011; Martin 
& Murtagh, 2015; Norris, Van Steen, Direito & Stamatakis, 2020; Vetter, Orr, O’Dwyer 
& O’Connor, 2020) have investigated the impact of integrating physical activity into 
school lessons on the quantity and intensity of children’s physical activity. Many of 
these studies included PA in mathematics (Innerd et al., 2019; Kibbe et al., 2011; Martin 
& Murtagh, 2015; Vetter et al., 2020) or languages lessons (Innerd et al., 2019; Kibbe 
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et al., 2011; Martin & Murtagh, 2015). They indicated that active learning in the class-
room successfully increased the amount, duration, and intensity of PA. Active learning 
could increase children’s PA for 2.8 to 7.7 minutes (Bartholomew, Golaszewski et al., 
2018; Daly-Smith, Zwolinsky, McKenna, Tomporowski, Defeyter & Manley, 2018; 
Donnelly et al., 2009; Innerd et al., 2019; Institute of medicine, 2013; Kibbe et al., 
2011; Martin & Murtagh, 2015; Norris et al., 2020; Szabo-Reed et al., 2017; Vazou et 
al., 2018; Vetter et al., 2020). Similar results were obtained in studies from Slovenia. 
Ajdovec (2017) investigated the effect of integrating PA into non-physically active les-
sons on physical inactivity; on the other hand, Ovčjak (2016) integrated PA into music 
lessons and assessed the amount and intensity of PA during these lessons.
Many of these studies were conducted with children from 1st to 4th grade. Global 
trends suggest that PA decreases even further as children get older (Cox, Schofield, 
Greasley & Kolt, 2006; WHO, 2019a). Therefore, we were interested in the amount and 
intensity of PA of older children. 
 
METHODS
Participants
A total of 22 children (mean age: 11.41; 12 boys and 10 girls) from the sixth grade 
of a primary school in Slovenia were recruited. We explained all the details to the head-
master, the mathematics teacher and the parents. The study involved a mathematics 
teacher who taught both groups - the experimental and the control group. 16 children 
participated in the experimental group, 6 children formed the control group. The par-
ents of the children gave their written consent before the study was conducted.
Intervention
The study was conducted in May 2019. The intervention lasted five school days, 
from Monday to Friday. During the intervention, children had four lessons of math-
ematics. One lesson lasted 45 minutes. The teacher integrated PA in mathematics 
lessons of the experimental group. In the control group, the mathematics lessons 
remained unchanged. The children from both groups had the same mathematics les-
sons content. The mathematics lessons were planned together with the mathematics 
teacher. The PA tasks were of moderate to vigorous intensity, but relatively easy to 
perform. For example: 
 – True-or-false questions: if the statements were true, students did 5 jumps, if they 
were false, they did 3 squats; 
 – Fit box: We wrote different PA tasks on slips of paper and then put them in a 
box. The teacher chose a student to answer the questions. If she/he answered 
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correctly, she/he got to take a slip out of the box. The student read the task on 
the slip and the whole class performed that task.
Instruments
PA was measured using accelerometers (ActiGraph wGT3W-BT, ActiGraph, LLC) 
worn on the children’s right hips. Data were collected for one week (five days) during 
school hours. Children’s out-of-school PA data were not collected for this study. At 
the beginning of the study, we demonstrated how to properly fasten the accelerometer 
around the children’s waists. 
Data analysis
Accelerometer data were analyzed using activity counts of 15-second epochs. All 
sequences of 20 minutes or more with consecutive zero counts were excluded from 
each individuals’ records. To distinguish between physical activity phenotypes, we con-
sidered the thresholds proposed by Freedson, Pober & Janz (2005): 
 – Physical inactivity (PI): < 100 cpm,
 – Low PA: 100–1262 cpm,
 – Medium PA: 1263–4135 cpm,
 – Vigorous PA: > 4135 cpm. 
Data were organized using the Microsoft Excel program (Microsoft Corporation, 
Redmond, USA) and processed using the SPSS statistical package (IBM Corp., Ar-
monk, NY, USA). Differences between groups in vigorous PA during mathematics les-
sons were analyzed using the Mann Whitney U test. This test was used because the data 
were not normally distributed. For the other intensity levels, the independent samples 
t-test was used. All statistical decisions were considered at p < 0.05. 
RESULTS
From the accelerometer data, we calculated the average of each PA intensity phe-
notypes during mathematics lessons for both groups (Table 1). The results showed that 
there were differences between the groups in all phenotypes of intensity. During math-
ematics lessons the experimental group was more PA in MV (p < 0.001; ES = 2.37), V 
(p = 0.002; ES = 1.48), M (p < 0.001; ES = 2.38) and L (p = 0.005; ES = 1.50) intensity 
compared to the control group. In addition, the experimental group was also less PI 
(p =  0.001; ES = 2.08) during mathematics than the control group.
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Table 1. Comparing the levels of PA and PI between groups in mathematics lessons
EG (mean ± SD) CG (mean ± SD) P (ES)
PA (cpm) 281.0 ± 104.1 69.9 ± 35.2 < 0.001 (2.72)
PI (minutes) 33.5 ± 3.7 40.2 ± 2.6 0.001 (2.08)
L PA (minutes) 8.5 ± 2.9 4.3 ± 2.3 0.005 (1.50)
M PA (minutes) 11.0 ± 3.5 3.6 ± 2.66 < 0.001 (2.38)
V PA (minutes) 0.5 ± 0.4 0.1 ± 0.1 0.002 (1.48)
MV PA (minutes) 11.5 ± 3.7 3.7 ± 2.7 < 0.001 (2.37)
Legend: EG ‒ experimental group, SD – standard deviation, CG ‒ control group, P 
(ES) – effect size, PA – physical activity, PI – physical inactivity, V – vigorous, M – me-
dium intensity, L – low intensity, MV – medium to vigorous intensity.
We also compared the levels of PA and PI between groups during school time (Ta-
ble 2). The level of physical activity during school hours did not differ significantly 
between groups. Nevertheless, the experimental group spent slightly more time in MV 
intensity (p = 0.284) than the control group during the whole school period and was 
less PI (p = 0.284) than the control group. The data showed that the experimental group 
spent 10.62 minutes more in MVPA than the control group. We believe that this differ-
ence is due to the integration of PA into mathematics lessons. We calculated the aver-
age level of PA during school time without PA during math lessons and the difference 
between the groups was only 2.9 minutes in MVPA. We found that students from both 
groups reached minimum recommendations for physical activity while still in school.
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Table 2. Comparing the levels of PA and PI between groups during total school time
EG (mean ± SD) CG (mean ± SD) P (ES)
PA (cpm) 415.7 ± 130.1 430 ± 108.4 0.814
PI (minutes) 180.9 ± 19.9 191.5 ± 20.9 0.284
L PA (minutes) 51.7 ± 12.6 41.6 ± 14.7 0.125
M PA (minutes) 73.8 ± 18.4 61.0 ± 19.7 0.169
V PA (minutes) 5.3 ± 3.1 7.5 ± 2.1 0.128
MV PA (minutes) 79.1 ± 19.9 68.5 ± 20.9 0.284
Legend: EG ‒ experimental group, SD – standard deviation, CG ‒ control group, P 
(ES) – effect size, PA – physical activity, PI – physical inactivity, V – vigorous, M – me-
dium intensity, L – low intensity MV – medium to vigorous intensity.
DISCUSSION
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of teaching mathematics 
through PA tasks on PA. Using an accelerometer, we measured PA and PI of sixth-grade 
children during mathematics lessons and during school time.
The data for PI during mathematics lessons showed that the control group was 
74.4% of the mathematics lessons PI, while the experimental group was only 14.9% 
of the lessons PI. Vazou et al. (2018) also found differences between the groups. They 
integrated PA in the mathematics lessons of fourth-grade children. During the experi-
mental lessons, they were 40.44% of the lessons PI, in contrast, during control time 
they were 42% PI. Martin and Murtagh’s (2015) study showed similar results. Children 
were at 46.49% less PI during the English and mathematics than during regular lessons. 
Ovčjak (2016) measured the PI of Slovenian children during active music lessons. She 
found that in the experimental group 23.9% of lessons were PI and in the control group 
62.9%. We can conclude that the other studies found smaller differences between the 
groups compared to our results. We think that this difference is due to the fact that the 
other studies included younger children than ours. It is generally believed that PA de-
creases with age, so this may lead to an increased PI (Calvert, Mahar, Flay & Turner, 
2018; Volmut, Pišot & Šimunič, 2013; Webster, Russ, Vazou, Goh & Erwin, 2015).
In this study, the experimental group spent 25.56% of lessons in MVPA, the control 
group 8.22%. Other studies have reported similar results (Vazou et al., 2018; Martin & 
Murtagh, 2015; Mullender-Wijnsma et al., 2015a, Ovčjak, 2016). Martin and Murtagh 
(2015) found that children in the experimental group were in MVPA 23.5% of the ac-
tive lessons. From ours and other studies, we can see that the integration of PA into 
mathematics lessons can improve primary school children’s MVPA level and reduce 
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PI during mathematics lessons. It is also interesting to compare our results with those 
of Pušnik (2013). He measured the effective time parameters of physical education and 
the time children spent in MVPA. He found that children spent 13.22 minutes in MVPA 
during physical education. This is very close to our results where the experimental 
group spent 11.5 minutes in MVPA during mathematics lessons. We can assume that 
the integration of physical activity during mathematics lessons may be closer to MVPA 
intensity during physical education lessons. However, as we know, children perform 
complex motor tasks during physical education, while only performing simple motor 
tasks during experimental mathematics instruction.
We also measured PA and PI of sixth-grade children during school hours. We found 
that the extent of MVPA during school hours did not differ significantly between the 
groups. The experimental group spent 79.1 minutes in MVPA during all school time 
and 180.9 minutes PI, while the control group spent 68.47 minutes in MVPA and 191.5 
minutes PI. Nevertheless, we observed a slight trend in the differences between the 
groups in MVPA. Other studies found significant differences between groups in MVPA 
(Bartholomew, Jowers et al., 2018; Calvert et al., 2018; Erwin, Abel, Beighle & Beets, 
2011), but some of them found no differences in PI (Bartholomew, Jowers et al., 2018). 
Bartholomew et al. (2018) measured PA during school hours when students received 
10-15 minutes of active lessons. The results of his study showed that children in ex-
perimenting schools took more steps and moved more in percentage points during the 
school week than students in control schools, but there were no statistically differences 
in sedentary behavior. Another study (Riley, Lubans, Holmes & Morgan, 2016) report-
ed that the experimental group engaged in PA significantly more and tended to spend 
more time in MVPA during school hours compared to the control group. Intervention 
effects were also found for sedentary behavior during school hours. The control group 
was PI 67.8% of school time, while the experimental group was PI 62.6% of school 
time.
Innerd et al. (2019) measured PA at baseline, at the end of the intervention, and 4 
weeks after the intervention. The difference in average daily MVPA (experimental-
control) was 2.8 minutes/day at 8 weeks and 7.0 minutes/day at follow-up. In addi-
tion, Donnelly et al. (2009) observed PA during the spring semester in each of the 3 
intervention years. Children who participated in physically active classes had signifi-
cantly higher levels of PA during the school day, on weekends, and also on weekdays 
compared to children in control schools. This could be explained by a change in chil-
dren’s attitude and their belief that they can be anywhere and in almost any situation 
PA. After this finding, we could predict that our intervention was too short to obtain 
reliable data on how the integration of PA into mathematics lessons affects the level 
of MVPA during school time. 
This study also has some other limitations. One of them is the small sample size. 
The participants were only from the sixth grade, and we only included PA in the math-
ematics lessons. In the future, more research should be done on how the integration of 
PA into different school subjects affects children and adolescents’ daily PA. Unfortu-
nately, our study could not examine how the inclusion of PA tasks affected children’s 
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academic performance - particularly in mathematics - cognitive ability, or on-task be-
havior, because the intervention program lasted only five school days, during which 
students in the experimental and control groups received only four hours of mathemat-
ics instruction. A larger effect would not necessarily have been a reflection of the in-
tervention program only, but also of a higher motivation and concentration of students 
in learning mathematics. In addition, we should not neglect the fact that students learn 
at home (e.g., write math homework) and that teachers are in all likelihood better pre-
pared for the intervention program when they teach math. Teachers are not used to on 
this type of teaching and therefore take more time to prepare than usual. We need to be 
careful when comparing our study with others as they may have used different methods 
to measure and analyze the data.
CONCLUSIONS
Finally, this study showed that integrating PA with mathematics in the academic 
classroom resulted in increased MVPA during lessons. In addition, we found that stu-
dents in both groups achieved the minimum recommendations of PA while still on 
school time. Previous research has shown that physically active classes also improve 
academic performance (Ma et al., 2015; Mullender-Wijnsma et al., 2015a; Mullender-
Wijnsma, 2015b; Mullender-Wijnsma, 2016; Vazou & Skrade, 2016). This should be an 
additional encouragement for teachers to integrate physical activity into their classes.
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