Psychology Studies

Worobey, J., & Worobey, H. (1999) . The Impactg of a Two-Year School Breakfast Program for Preschool-Aged Children on Their Nutrient Intake and Pre-Academic Performance. Child Study Journal, 29, 113-131.

This study contains information dealing with the relationship between nutrition and academic performance. The A variable consists of eating a well-balanced breakfast with a School Breakfast Program (SBP), while the B variable consists of pre-academic performance. The procedure these researchers used to study a nutritional breakfast was to provide preschoolers with a SBP. Every morning that the children attended school, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the preschoolers who participated would arrive at school at 8:15 A.M. and would eat breakfast in the dining hall until 9:00 A.M. when class would begin. The students were offered a breakfast that consisted of a serving of milk, a serving or fruit or vegetable or full-strength juice, and two servings of bread or meat or bread or meat-alternatives. The children could eat what they wished of the possible choices and every child ate breakfast on all the days it was available. The parents of the first randomly assigned group were asked to maintain breakfast log to keep a record of the breakfasts that the child ate on the days they did not attend school. The same routine was administered to the next randomly assigned group that was evaluated. Next each child in the experiment was tested for about 20 to 30 minutes each. These tests all took place before the daily snack was served. The pre-academic performance was observed through a series of tests that did not test General Intelligence. Instead they tested cognitive performance through memory games and mazes. These test included: Mazes, The Preschool Embedded Figures Test, Verbal Memory, Numerical Memory, Pattern Match, and Same of Different. Another study was constructed that only differed in the fact that a control group of student was used to compare to the group having the SBP. These students were given breakfast at home, keeping a log of what they ate. The tests administered were the same as in the first study.

The sample in the first study consisted of twelve pre-school aged children, five girls and seven boys ranging from the age of 3 years, 10 months to 5 years, 2 months. The sample in the second study consisted of 19 children...

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...st year college GPAs and eating breakfast. However, the relationship between not eating breakfast and higher GPAs could have been a collinear relation to sleeping-habit factors, since those who woke up earlier have a better chance of eating breakfast. After controlling the effects of weekend and weekday wake up time, the study demonstrated that eating breakfast did not significantly affect the GPA. However, eating breakfast did prove to improve real and spatial memory among the students. No other nutritional-related variable had a significant effect on student GPA.

This was for the most part, a “good study” to test the relationship between health related factors and GPAs. The students were randomly assigned and the tests given to measure any correlation were valid tests that were reviewed by professionals in the areas. The part that was bad was the fact that the survey consisted of students that were available to respond. They were all at the same university. I think a wider sample that included student at different universities may have given a better representation of college students and the effects of nutrition. (DD)