Introduction: Recent data from the "2020 Korea Child and Adolescent Human Rights Survey" indicate that elementary students increasingly feel sleep-deprived due to higher media use and excessive study, contributing to depression, aggression, and stress. Executive function, essential for children's social, emotional, and cognitive development, is influenced by their daily activities.
Objectives: This study aimed to examine changes in executive function based on time use among elementary students using secondary data from the 8th (2015) and 13th (2020) waves of the Korean Child Panel Data.
Method: This study utilized data from the 8th wave (2015), when the participants were in the first grade of elementary school, and the 13th wave (2020), when they were in the sixth grade. A secondary data analysis was conducted to examine the effects of elementary school students' time use on executive function, using SPSS version 25 to perform frequency and percentage analysis, ANOVA, independent t-tests, correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis.
Result: Weekday findings revealed that more reading and less TV time (ideally under 1.5 hours) were linked to higher executive function, while weekend outdoor activity was significantly beneficial. Additionally, the father's occupation and education level also impacted executive function.
Conclusion: The results of this study not only serve as research on time use among elementary school students but also provide a precise temporal basis for achieving a balanced schedule. Consequently, they are expected to offer quantitative evidence on how tasks impact cognitive function.