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Synthesis Paper: Sleep and Grade Point Average

This document presents a literature review and methodology for a study examining the relationship between sleep and grade point average (GPA) among college students. Prior studies have found a correlation between more sleep and higher GPAs, with students averaging less than 5 or 6 hours of sleep per night tending to have lower GPAs. The researchers hypothesized that students averaging fewer than 8 hours of sleep per night would have lower GPAs than those getting 8 hours or more. To test this, they developed an anonymous online survey to collect quantitative data from college students about their sleep habits and GPAs. The results would help determine if hours of sleep influence academic performance.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
149 views20 pages

Synthesis Paper: Sleep and Grade Point Average

This document presents a literature review and methodology for a study examining the relationship between sleep and grade point average (GPA) among college students. Prior studies have found a correlation between more sleep and higher GPAs, with students averaging less than 5 or 6 hours of sleep per night tending to have lower GPAs. The researchers hypothesized that students averaging fewer than 8 hours of sleep per night would have lower GPAs than those getting 8 hours or more. To test this, they developed an anonymous online survey to collect quantitative data from college students about their sleep habits and GPAs. The results would help determine if hours of sleep influence academic performance.

Uploaded by

api-534114993
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Synthesis Paper

Synthesis Paper: Sleep and Grade Point Average

Angela Adamo, Ben Rodriguez, Danny Wall, Jordan Peterson, Morgan Rosser

Illinois State University

COM 297: Communication and Research Methods

Dr. Lindsey Thomas

April 30, 2020

Abstract
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College students are notorious for their constant state of sleep deprivation. The struggle

to balance homework, friends, work and attending class is something shared among those who

attend post-secondary education. One step onto a college campus and one thing is clear:

everyone is tired. Late nights during the week happen to study or complete a paper that the

student waited until the last minute to start. Late nights during the weekend happen to binge

watch TV shows, party with strangers or hang out with friends. It’s assumed that the more sleep

a student gets, the better grades are earned. Is this true? Does getting more hours of sleep

actually equate to a higher GPA? We plan to study students’ GPAs in comparison to the average

hours of sleep they get per night. By utilizing studies and the items listed in our basic plan we

hope to find a good correlation between the hours of sleep a college student gets and its effect on

their GPA while also measuring outside factors such as age, year in school, average hours of

sleep during the week versus weekend, time going to sleep, time of the students classes, gender,

medications/sleep aids taken and caffeine intake.

Literature Review

The correlation between sleep and GPA is commonly noted. A 2010 study by the

University of Minnesota analyzing the links between GPA and sleep showed that quantity of

sleep significantly impacted GPA. Lowry et. al 2010 states: “The average amount of sleep a

student receives per night does seem to be tied to the student's GPA. Also, an increased number

of nights in an average week that the student obtains less than five hours of sleep (our measure of

sleep deprivation) seems to be negatively related to GPA”(17). This study reports a lack of

evidence showing that quality of sleep impacts GPA, showing that in some cases, amount of

sleep may actually be more impactful than quality in reference to academic performance. Many

students have questionable living situations; sharing rooms, living with strangers and moving
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twice a year between two or more living environments. These are all important to consider when

analyzing sleep, as external factors other than academics may be impeding on one’s sleep. While

Lowry et. al 2010 found that quantity is more valuable than quality in terms of a student’s sleep,

Barger et. al 2017 found that regularity of sleep patterns positively impacted academic

performance. They found that sleep regularity and grades are positively correlated, and noted the

impact of wake times on academic performance in first-year college students. While evidence on

whether quality of sleep greatly helps or hinders one’s ability to function in an academic setting,

it has consistently been noted in various academic studies that amount of sleep is greatly

impactful on one’s ability to function successfully as a college student in the classroom. Kelly et.

al 2001 reported that “short sleepers” (less than 6 hours of sleep) functioned less effectively in an

academic setting than “long sleepers” (more than 9 hours of sleep). This is thought to be because

of the hindered ability to focus caused by sleep deprivation. Many students, as well as adults

participating in the working world, who are sleep deprived tend to struggle with focusing or even

staying awake in class or at work. This would negatively affect GPA and overall performance ,

as not cognitively absorbing and processing material would make academic functioning more

difficult when it needs to be applied. Additionally, Jane F. Gaultney, PhD of the Journal of

American College Health concluded in 2010 that “Many college students are at risk for sleep

disorders, and those at risk may also be at risk for academic failure”(91). In fact, as of 2017,

Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment reported that 60% of college students regularly sleep

poorly, and 7.7% can be diagnosed with insomnia. It can be seen here that sleep and GPA are

likely correlated and are possibly codependent variables. The implications of this are also

important to acknowledge, as sleep determines many parts of one’s physical and mental

wellbeing. The amount of sleep per night can have a large effect on memory and cognition; as
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Hershner et. al 2014 states: “This chronic sleep deprivation may impair academic performance,

mood regulation, and driving safety. Students who attain sufficient sleep may still struggle with

sleepiness due to sleep disorders”(2014). This study shows that lack of sleep impacts more than

just academic performance- it can cause danger in terms of mental health and vehicle operation.

While the physical necessity of sleep is obvious, the impact on mental health is also important to

note. Fuligni et. al 2017 notes: “...our results suggest that reducing sleep for the sake of academic

performance may result in a greater decline in mental health than the decline in academic

performance resulting from increasing sleep for the sake of mental health”(2017). Sleep is vital

for the functioning of all people, and the lack of is detrimental to health and daily functioning.

While the health implications of sleep deprivation is important to acknowledge, researchers were

interested in the impact of sleep deprivation on actual grade point average. The importance of

sleep is greatly noted for students, but how impactful is it really, according to the numbers? In

this study, researchers sought to ask the following: “How many hours of sleep per night

influence grade point average in college students?” This question is important to answer, as

educating current students on the importance of sleep would greatly impact their academic

career. In addition to the students, answering the research question would benefit professors and

administrators. It could provide more information on their students to help them better plan for a

semester and support their students, creating an overall better learning environment for students.

Promoting an understanding of students’ obligations and struggles on such a vital part of their

health would create a platform for more open communication and an empathic relationship

between student and teacher. In answering the question, researchers hypothesized that there

would be a positive correlation between the two. The formal hypothesis was: "Students who

average fewer than eight hours of sleep per night have lower grade point averages than students
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who average eight or more hours of sleep". It was guessed by researchers that as hours of sleep

decreased, so would GPA and academic performance Significant amounts of the research and

evidence found prior to completing the study pointed to this outcome. It’s also been in the

experience of the researchers that sleep is important in the academic functioning of a student in

higher education. Society puts a heavy emphasis on the importance of a good night’s sleep, and

the upbringing of the researchers echoed this. So, researchers sought to discover the correlation,

if any, between sleep and GPA among students at Illinois State University.

Methods

Survey Data Collection

Creating the survey, the group was aware of ethical issues that could arise within the

survey questions. From weighing the risks and benefits, to informed consent and finally

confidentiality and anonymity, the group was able to lay the groundwork for the survey portion

of the project while finding the answer to the research question and hypothesis. Aware that the

survey may not be comfortable for all participants, the group made sure participants had a choice

to take the survey or not. By taking the survey, participants were able to give informed consent

by completing it. There is no compensation behind this survey because it is not overseen by the

IRB, nor did the group have IRB permission to compensate. For the sake of the survey,

individuals are only required to provide a few personal items like age, gender, and possible sleep

disorders. Other than that, questions are open for the taker of the survey to provide their

information while maintaining their anonymity, leaving the results with the best data pool to use.

The individuals use the veil of anonymity to provide a deeper and richer answer base as they do

not have anything to hide because they don’t have to provide identification. This leads to the

answer of the hypothesis and research question in the most ethical way possible.
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Survey Data Analysis

The survey was planned to gather quantifiable data about college students that would

answer the research question, “How many hours of sleep per night influence grade point average

in college students?”. The method chosen to create the survey was a nominal/open-ended

question base with a multiple choice scale design, including implementing the funnel technique.

The reasoning behind this method was to create an easier experience for the survey taker,

retrieve more precise and in-depth data, and to have a well informational flowing survey. In

order to prove the hypothesis true, students who average fewer than eight hours of sleep per

night have lower grade point averages than students who average eight or more hours of sleep,

the group created questions to ask students about their sleep habits and GPA. Questions included

asked about age, gender, living situations, jobs, sleep disorders, habits, major, average sleep

hour, and other information to reach the best data possible. The survey was distributed to 56

college students attending Illinois State University ranging from freshman to senior year.

Quantifiable data was used to find an underlying theme, with GPA as the dependent variable and

average hours of sleep per night as the independent variable.

Interview Data Collection

In order to answer the research question and hypothesis, interview protocol is important

when ethically asking students questions about their GPA and sleep habits. When formulating

interview questions and script, risks arised concerning subjects mental health, personal

identifiers, grade point average, relationship status, etc. The group created a protocol for every

interviewer to follow as they ask their questions. The protocol states,

Each group member will find someone to interview on their own and ask them the

following questions. Each interviewer will begin by reciting the script to inform the
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interviewee on the project and to ask permission to record. In an objective, non-

judgemental way, the interviewer will ask the questions and any follow ups or extra

questions that they feel would be appropriate and informative to the study. After the

interview, each group member will transcribe their recording (if given permission), or

will review and share their detailed notes”

Although names are not reported, informed consent was the first and foremost outlined in the

beginning of the interview session where the interviewee either replied with “yes” or “no”. If an

interviewee wished to terminate the interview process at any point or not answer a question, they

were able to do so immediately and effectively. The informed consent was read as such:

I want to first thank you for your willingness to participate in this study. I appreciate

your taking time to meet with me for this study. My goal is to understand the correlation

between sleep habits and grade point average in college students. There are no right or

wrong answers; I would just like to hear about your experience in as much detail as you

feel comfortable sharing. Please take as much time as you need. Our conversation will

last as long as you would like it to, so if at any time you would like to end, just let me

know. Please note that I will be asking about sleeping disorders and mental health,

which is triggering conversation for some, and you can decline to answer if you so

please. All questions are in regards to your last semester on campus as a full time

student. Do I have your permission to audio record this interview?

In order to receive the best data, interviews needed to be completed verbally to ensure that

questions could be expanded upon. This required that persons being interviewed to be seen and

heard by the interviewer face-to-face which takes away confidentiality between the two. Aside
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8

from this, the interviewer did not record names or physical identifiers so anonymity was still

achieved.

Interview Data Analysis

Questions created were quantitative based in order to enhance descriptive and conceptual

data from the participant. Each question was created in order to cover demographics and in-depth

information about sleep and GPA. The five researchers used different recording and transcribing

methods, including applications that automatically transcribed spoken words into text, as well as

recorded and manually transcribed the interviews by hand. Both methods yielded accurate results

in order to analyze. The demographics of this interview was any full-time enrolled college

student at a university last semester. Most survey takers were women who were juniors in the

College of Arts and Sciences, so the group branched out from that. Each group member

interviewed someone, in total there were 3 females, 2 males, 3 seniors, 1 junior, 1 sophomore,

and they all had different majors. The data collected was qualitative based answers that

categorized traits and characteristics to lead to the answer of whether or not hours of sleep per

night will influence grade point average in college students.

Archival Research Data Collection

In order for the group to best tackle the amount of data found for their study, they needed

to break up the information into a ‘codebook’. The codebook allowed the researchers to better

understand and categorize the tweets they were using for their research. They broke the tweets

down into 13 different categories for further exploration into the topic of sleep vs GPA. Using

the codebook and accompanying it with the chart the researchers had an easy time going through

and separating their findings into the appropriate boxes. The 2 options most selected by the

group to place their designated tweets were “Pick one: good GPA vs sleep” or “good GPA
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9

(humble brag)”. Once they were able to count and code the data the researchers moved onto the

making of their t-test and statistical analysis.

Archival Research Data Analysis

While coding the collected archival research it was decided to leave the authors names

present because the data was already put out for the public to view. While conducting the

statistical analysis it was decided to leave names out of the data to ensure anonymity of those

who participated in the survey. The reason for this decision was in the groups opinion more to do

with the Tweets being public and in the public domain. If the individuals who had tweeted it

behind a private “wall” the group would have needed both permission from the tweeter

themselves to first access the page which then would have altered the way the group decided to

keep the other tweet public with the identity of the user. Some of the tweets, used for the

statistical and content analysis, were years old, some as old as 6 years ago. So, going and asking

Twitter users to give consent would be possible however the researchers felt that it would be

more beneficial to use the logic of open and public Twitter accounts rather than seeking out

permission behind closed accounts. There is no compensation since this study is not being

overseen by the IRB, nor do the researchers have IRB permission to compensate. Lastly, the

researchers felt it was unnecessary to reach out to the individuals whose posts were used as part

of the researchers. However, if the decision was ever made to have the study go public or be

published, the researchers would contact the individuals and seek permission to use their tweets

as part of the research used in the study.

Statistical and Content Data Collection

The group decided to explore data through social media as a way of procuring

information for their study. They decided to use twitter to be exact. Twitter is considered a
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primary testimony because it is a written document, including artifacts like photos, diaries, and

recordings. Twitter involves private qualitative data that is inexpensive and involves a lot of

information. Within the qualitative data of twitter, it has diary entries, videos, autobiographies,

and other creative content. The reason behind using twitter for the archival research was because

the data involves different types of people in college and students with many different

perspectives on college and sleep habits. As a group, each member was assigned different

keywords to search within twitter to get different types of data. The key words used were

“GPA”, “all-nighter”, “sleep”, “stress” and “college”.

These keywords were chosen because it would help narrow down different types of

tweets in order to retrieve the type of data the group was looking for. After each member looked

up their specific keywords, members ‘screenshotted’ a collection of tweets and collected the data

in order to start analysis on the data. Information found within twitter shows that students

struggle balancing college stressors and their sleep schedule. Ethically there were a few things

the researchers had to take into consideration. For example, the researchers debated the use of

the name of each Twitter account. Should they be used? Should they be restricted and if so, at

what cost?

Statistical and Content Data Analysis

The overall risk and reward for this portion of the study was more on the minds of the

researchers than in the past. For example, the researchers looked and searched on Twitter for

people using certain hashtags. “Sleep, GPA, Stress, etc.” were some of the hashtags the group

used to find information pertaining to the overall study of sleep and the G.P.A. of college

students. The risk, in the opinion of the researchers came down to using people’s Twitter posts as
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research without their knowledge or consent. While yes, their Twitter accounts were public and

could be seen by anybody, the fact that some individuals use Twitter and other social media

platforms as a way of venting about their problems left the researchers with a bit of a

conundrum. However, they decided that the reward, in this instance the content derived from the

research, was more than enough to outweigh the risk and the group proceeded with the use of the

information.

Results

Survey Analysis:

In search of an answer to the research question, “Do hours of sleep per night influence

grade point average in college students?”, results collected from the online survey found that the

majority of respondents on average got less than eight hours of sleep (31), followed by those

who got around eight hours (25), and more than eight hours (3). Of the 31 who reported less than

eight hours of sleep, one reported a semester GPA of 2.0-2.5, nine reported a GPA of 2.5-3.0, six

reported a GPA of 3.0-3.5, and 14 reported a GPA of 3.5-4.0. Of those who reported about eight

hours, two reported a GPA of 2.0-2.5, two reported a GPA of 2.5-3.0, five reported a GPA of

3.0-3.5 and 15 reported a GPA of 3.5-4.0. Of those who reported more than eight hours of sleep,

two reported a GPA of 2.0-2.5 and one reported a GPA of 3.5-4.0. Overall, five respondents

reported a GPA between 2.0-2.5, 11 reported a GPA between 2.5-3.0, 11 reported a GPA

between 3.0-3.5 and 29 reported a GPA between 3.5-4.0. The results concluded that most

respondents averaged less than eight hours of sleep while maintaining a fairly high grade point

average. The results from this method of research produced insignificant evidence to support the

hypothesis, "Students who average fewer than eight hours of sleep per night have lower grade

point averages than students who average eight or more hours of sleep".
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Interview Analysis:

The individual interviews produced similar results to the online survey in regard to grade

point average and average hours of sleep. Of the five interviewees, all reported a GPA above 3.0

and between four and nine and a half hours of sleep on average. When participants were asked if

academic stress had negatively impacted their sleeping habits and patterns all but one reported

some level of significant disturbance. Additional data was collected that provided evidence to

suggest that participants experienced better sleep when academic stress was not high. One

participant responded to the question, “How do you sleep when you don't have academic stress?”

with “When I don't have any stress, I feel like it's easier for me to sleep, but I also feel like I'm

not as tired because I'm not overworking myself.” (Interview #5). Another participant similarly

reported, “My sleep schedule, when I am not stressed out and I'm not taking a heavy course load

is much better. And my sleep schedule is better because of this.” (Interview #4). These results

did provide qualitative evidence to suggest that stress of school often hinders ability to sleep well

but did not provide sufficient evidence to support the hypothesis.

Archival Research Analysis:

Data from the archival research analysis consisted of 53 tweets that reported lack of sleep

due to academic related work, the sacrifice of sleep for grade point average, the sacrifice of grade

point average for sleep, school related stress and lack of sleep, and the term “all-nighter”

signifying complete absence of sleep to complete an academic related task. The results

concluded a correlation between sleeping habits and grade point average/academic achievement

but did not provide sufficient evidence to suggest that college students who on average slept at

least eight hours experienced higher grade point averages.

Statistical and Content Analysis:


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In finding an answer to the research question, “do hours of sleep per night influence

grade point average in college students?”, statistical and content research found that 22% of

students tweeted about (1) feeling the need to choose between achieving a high grade point

average or getting an adequate amount of sleep, and an equal amount (22%) of students tweeted

about (4) “pulling an all-nighter” or cramming to study. There were no tweets found about (8b)

celebratory substance abuse and (5c) approaching due dates (0%). Three categories, (3)

satisfactory GPA (humble brag) (11%); (6) Lack of sleep (21%); (1) Pick one: GPA or Sleep

(22%); (4) Cramming/All nighter (22%); and (7) mental health (13%) accounted for 10% or

more of the data set. The remaining categories, (2) bad GPA (3%); (5a) Essay (5%); (5b) Exam

(3%); (8a) Substance abuse (3%) reported findings between 1% and 9% of the data set. The

statistics and content analysis provided sufficient evidence to reject the hypothesis and accept the

null hypothesis.

The p-value of .296058 determined that the result of the t-test was not significant at p < .

05. This resulted in the need to reject the hypothesis ("Students who

average fewer than eight hours of sleep per night have lower grade

point averages than students who average eight or more hours of

sleep") and accept the null hypothesis. Although many of the GPAs

reported in the survey were considered high (3.0 - 4.0), the amount

of students who reported getting more than eight hours of sleep was

significantly lower than those who reported getting less than eight

hours of sleep. For this reason the proposed hypothesis was not

proven statistically significant.


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The results of all combined research methods did not provide sufficient evidence to

support the hypothesis, "Students who average fewer than eight hours of sleep per night have

lower grade point averages than students who average eight or more hours of sleep", so the

hypothesis was rejected.

Discussion

The study conducted proved that contrary to the literature from previous studies that

sleep helps improve GPA, data recovered suggested otherwise. The surveys administered did not

indicate that a student’s GPA was significantly affected by the hours of sleep they received on

average. The literature and other studies on this topic all suggest that there is a positive

correlation between the amount of sleep a person gets and their academic performance reflecting

on their GPA. However after extensive research on prior studies, interviews, and surveys, the

data suggested that this hypothesis was incorrect and forced the group to reject it. This helped the

researchers further advance their understanding of this topic, although other studies have

suggested that was the case, it is not always correct. The group’s knowledge prior to the studies

has been altered to give a better understanding of the effects of sleep and GPA, based on the data

being insignificant. According to prior studies and research, the amount of sleep a person

received did impact their GPA. However, in the case of the sample at Illinois State University a

student’s GPA was not significantly affected by the average amount of sleep received per night.

This contradicts prior knowledge and studies about the topic and the data suggests that this was

not the case.

Limitations:

Some of the limitations that could have affected the data recovered from the surveys

could have been the sample size. Although there were 59 participants in the survey, this sample
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size compared to the student body of Illinois State University is not a very large one. This could

have caused the data to not reflect on the entire organization as a whole. Furthermore, this could

have caused statistical variation greater than what the organization as a whole would have

reflected. Another limitation on the study is our specific demographic of Illinois State

University. Different areas could potentially have cultural differences that affect hours or

patterns of sleep which could have reflected the data differently. Another limitation could have

been the fact that the surveys and interviews all asked for averages rather than exact amounts.

The amount of sleep and the GPA was rounded into groups rather than exact amounts which

could have caused a variation in the data. Due to time restrictions and resource availability the

data was not as precise as if it were a year by year study. Had the data been more extensive to the

exact amounts, a different result could have come from the data.

Future Direction:

Overall, the group did not experience any issues with the collection and researching of

the data as it went very well. However as discussed in the limitations, there are a few things that

could have been done differently to ensure more statistical accuracy. The first being measuring

the data to the exact decimal amount of GPA and the exact hours of sleep per night. Outside of

the exact amounts, there are not many things the group could have done differently to improve

statistical significance as time restraints were in place. For future endeavours, the group did not

find anything that could have greatly altered the results. The same approach to the research could

be taken and possibly add more precise measurements. The specific methods used proved to help

provide valuable information that helped the group reach the conclusion that the hypothesis must

be rejected.

Conclusion:
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In conclusion, after the extensive collection of the surveys, interviews, and research, the

results determined that there was not a correlation in the data. The data was not proven

statistically significant, meaning the amount of hours received from sleep did not significantly

positively affect a student’s grade point average. According to the data and contrary to the

popular belief, the average amount of hours of sleep per night does not affect a particular

student’s GPA or academic abilities.


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References

https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdev.12729 (Angela)

Fuligni, J. A., Arruda, H. E., Gonzales, A. N., and Krull, J. L. (2018). Adolescent sleep

duration, variability, and peak levels of achievement and mental health. Child

Development, 89(2), 18-28. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12729

Researchers sought to educate the public on the correlation (if any) between sleep,

academic performance and mental health in adolescents. Research was conducted using eligible

families selected in the classroom, and participants were given a checklist to fill out before bed

for two weeks. Researchers concluded that there were significant impacts on performance in

school and hours of sleep per night.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-03171-4 (jordan)

Barger, L. K., Clerx, W. M., O’Brien, C. S., Phillips, A. J. K., Picard, R. W., Sano, A.,

and Czeisler, C. A. (2017). Irregular sleep/wake patterns are associated with poorer

academic performance and delayed circadian and sleep/wake timing. Scientific Reports,

7. NP. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-03171-4

This study researched how irregular sleep patterns can affect academic performance.

Research was conducted by using undergraduate students' sleep diaries for 30 days. The results

of the study showed that irregular sleep actually do correlate with having a lower academic

performance.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4075951/ (Ben)

Chervin, R. D., and Hershner, S. D. (2014). Causes and consequences of sleepiness


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among college students. Nature and Science Of Sleep, 6, 73–84.

doi:10.2147/NSS.S62907

This study sought to find the causes as well as the consequences of sleep deprivation in

college students. The overall results of the study found that 50% of surveyed students

acknowledged that they reported daytime sleepiness as well as 70% of surveyed students failing

to attain a sufficient amount of sleep. They found that sleep deprivation leads to: lowered GPA,

lower overall academic success, compromised learning, as well as impaired mood. The purpose

of the study not only sought out to find out why the students were not sleeping well, but they also

sought out to give advice and promotion of services to help.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/796b/c55a51c8b4c317378e54db310254c1c5eb39.pdf (Morgan)

Clanton, R. C., Kelly, K. E., and Kelly, W. E., (2001). The relationship between sleep

length and grade point average among college students. College Student Journal, 35, 84-

86.

A University study conducted by college students hypothesized that short sleepers, those

who sleep 6 hours or less, would report lower grade-point averages than those classified as long

sleepers; those who sleep 9 hours or more. Researchers conducted self-reported assessments

among students that explored both average sleep duration and grade-point average. It was

concluded that short sleepers reported significantly lower grade-point averages than long

sleepers.

https://sites.oxy.edu/clint/physio/article/TheLinkBetweenSleepQuantityandAcademic.pd (Ben)

Dean, K., Lowry, M., & Manders, K. (2010). The link between sleep quantity and
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academic performance for the college student. Sentience 3(2), 16-9.

The study looked to draw a connection between quantity and quality of sleep and its

connection to the student’s GPA at the University of Minnesota. The researchers handed out

surveys around the campus, in which, they included 6 variables to their standard questions: a

sleep study questionnaire, academic success in general, asking the participants to include how

many nights per week they get less than 5 hours, the average number of hours of sleep per week,

and finally how many “all-nighters” each participant pulled in the past semester.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07448481.2010.483708 (Danny)

Gaultney, J. F. (2010). The prevalence of sleep disorders in college students: Impact on

academic performance. Journal of American College Health, 59(2), 91-97. doi:

10.1080/07448481.2010.483708

This study aimed to examine the correlation between sleeping disorders among college

students by age and gender and the effect on the student’s grade point average. The researchers

administered questionnaires regarding sleeping habits to 1,845 college students that attended a

large Southeastern public university. They concluded that a large percentage of those students

were at risk of possessing a sleep disorder. Among these students, the ones who showed signs of

having a sleep disorder were also at a higher risk of academic failure.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5536318/

Schlarb, A. A., Friedrich, A., & Claßen, M. (2017). Sleep problems in university students – an

intervention. Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, 13, 1989–2001. doi:

10.2147/NDT.S142067
Synthesis Paper
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Researchers examined the prevalence of sleeping disorders and implications of them

among college students. This study found that 27% of students are at risk for a sleeping disorder,

and 60% have a lack of sleep quality. These things were found to impair daytime function, lower

GPA, and limit the ability to learn.

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