The evidence and gap map (EGM) focuses on yoga, a concept related to mindfulness. Mindfulness describes an “awareness of one’s internal states and surroundings” (American Psychological Association 2020), it can be seen as an umbrella term and can be brought about by many different practices. In contrast, yoga is a specific way of living. It is an old Indian practice and describes an interaction between body and psyche (Nikolic 2011: 20-21) based on the eight-part exercise path according to Patanjali (Dittrich 2008: 25). Well-known components of yoga include rules of conduct in life as well as body postures, breathing exercises and meditation (Dittrich 2008: 26-32, Stück 1998: 61-63). Thus, yoga encompasses many more aspects than mindfulness. Most importantly, mindfulness describes a state of mind, whereas yoga addresses aspects of active and meditative life.

In recent years, yoga in schools has come into the focus of the public, indicating an increased interest in the topic (e.g. Maas 2014, Plahl 2018, Sundermann 2019, Martens 2020) The present work aims to substantiate this observation by taking into account information from both English-speaking and German-speaking countries.  

The investigation takes the form of an Evidence and Gap Map (EGM), providing a systematic review of the available evidence and the evidence gaps. Creating an EGM is transparent in all steps, and includes a comprehensive search of potentially pertinent information from different sources, an assessment of their relevance by screening the information found against explicit criteria, as well as the systematic coding and analysis of the information thus obtained (White et al. 2020). The work is therefore not bound to a specific conceptualisation but rather lends itself to the construction of a theoretical framework from the available information in the form of a ‘logic model’.

In the present EGM the effects of yoga at school on students in grades 1 to 6 is investigated in English-speaking and German-speaking countries. To our knowledge there are no current evidence maps on yoga in this setting. Some pre-existing systematic reviews deal more generally with mindfulness, some address children and yoga (see e.g. Serwacki & Cook-Cottone 2012, Zenner et al. 2014, Galantino et al. 2014, Erwin & Robinson 2015, Ferreira-Vorkapic et al. 2015, Felver et al. 2016, Maynard et al. 2017, McKeering & Hwang 2019), no systematic overview yet exists for German-speaking countries. Hence, the present EGM offers an update, up to and including the first half of the year 2020, and potentially broadens the database by including studies from German-speaking countries.

The focus of this EGM is yoga in school and its effects for early-grade students in English-speaking and German speaking countries. Information is considered for this EGM if it meets the inclusion criteria (following the PICOS scheme, see White et al. 2020) regarding population (school children in grades 1 through 6; no exclusively clinical sample), setting (school institutions), intervention (some type of yoga intervention sequence with regard to body posture, and optionally one or more of the following elements: breathing technique, meditation, relaxation, the teaching of yogic behaviour), and country (intervention conducted in countries with first language English or German). Potentially relevant studies were searched in international as well as national databases of the various pertinent academic disciplines (education, psychology, medicine and sports sciences), respective library catalogues and through the internet. In addition, experts of yoga, yoga associations, institutions and organisations were contacted directly via e-mail. Moreover, backward searches were run, taking into account previously found systematic reviews as well as results from the direct information requests. This systematic search was performed between April and June 2020. 1,836 documents have been thus identified, 10 of which could not be accessed. This was due to restrictions of libraries during the COVID-19 pandemic (5 documents), lack of access to the ProQuest service (3 documents) and general lack of access to journals (2 documents). The remaining 1,826 documents have been screened on title and abstract, as well as on full text, for their pertinence with respect to the research question. Screening has followed the inclusion/exclusion criteria specified above. In result, 33 studies have been identified for inclusion in the EGM. They were carried out in the USA (23 studies), Germany (7 studies), England (2 studies) and Australia (1 study).

The studies have been coded with respect to the year of documentation, as well as details of the sample, the setting and the intervention (yoga components and other components, if any). Furthermore, the measured effects of the intervention, the study design and methods of the data analyses have been collected. Each study has also been analysed with respect to its underlying logic model of how yoga, or specific yoga components, contribute to specific outcomes. Preliminary results show that, starting from the 80ies, interest in yoga at primary school has increased steadily in English-speaking and German-speaking countries alike, with almost two-thirds of the studies conducted in the 2010s. As regards study quality, a third of studies do not clarify sufficiently in which setting the intervention was held or give information on the students participating in the intervention. A substantial number of studies in Germany, especially, do not clarify which component of yoga was addressed, nor provide information on any further intervention components in the study. As regards the studies for which specification is available, three quarters used breathing techniques in addition to yoga poses and a third used meditation. Interestingly, all interventions which made use of meditation also integrated breathing techniques into their yoga sessions. Two of these studies further included elements of cognitive instruction on yoga as a way of living. To investigate the effects of yoga, about 80% of all studies carried out a group intervention with pre/post testing and quantitative analysis of the data. Currently, the theoretical framework of the effects of yoga used in each study is analysed, in order to develop a synthesis of these frameworks over all studies. The postulated effects of yoga will be contrasted with the empirical outcomes obtained.

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