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. 2019 Oct 1:4:16.
doi: 10.1038/s41539-019-0055-z. eCollection 2019.

Sleep quality, duration, and consistency are associated with better academic performance in college students

Kana Okano  1 , Jakub R Kaczmarzyk  1 , Neha Dave  2 , John D E Gabrieli  1 , Jeffrey C Grossman  3
Affiliations

Sleep quality, duration, and consistency are associated with better academic performance in college students

Kana Okano et al. NPJ Sci Learn. .

Abstract

Although numerous survey studies have reported connections between sleep and cognitive function, there remains a lack of quantitative data using objective measures to directly assess the association between sleep and academic performance. In this study, wearable activity trackers were distributed to 100 students in an introductory college chemistry class (88 of whom completed the study), allowing for multiple sleep measures to be correlated with in-class performance on quizzes and midterm examinations. Overall, better quality, longer duration, and greater consistency of sleep correlated with better grades. However, there was no relation between sleep measures on the single night before a test and test performance; instead, sleep duration and quality for the month and the week before a test correlated with better grades. Sleep measures accounted for nearly 25% of the variance in academic performance. These findings provide quantitative, objective evidence that better quality, longer duration, and greater consistency of sleep are strongly associated with better academic performance in college. Gender differences are discussed.

Keywords: Education.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interestsThe authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Correlations between sleep measures and overall score. a Average daily hours slept (sleep duration) vs. overall score for the semester. b Standard deviation of average daily hours of sleep (sleep inconsistency) vs. overall score in class
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