Try the Sleep Challenge!
Sleep is vital for health, but the majority of students in high school and college sleep less than the recommended 8-10 hours of sleep for teenagers, and 7-9 hours for adults. Sleep is commonly restricted during exam periods, but can also be limited due to bright lights, stress, and stimulants such as caffeine. The consequences of lack of sleep include diminished concentration, inefficient consolidation of memories, depression, and a lower immune system. In this study, educating students about the importance of sleep did not change their behaviours, so another tactic was employed. In order to truly motivate students, they were offered extra exam points if they slept on average 8 hours per day during finals week. A wristband actigraphy (similar to Fitbit but more accurate) was used to measure sleep duration.
There were three studies conducted in this paper. The first study provided students with the incentive of additional exam marks if they slept on average of 8 hours a day; the catch was that if students slept below 7 hours, they would have marks deducted from their exams instead. The participants in this incentive group were compared to another set of participants that were not given the incentive. The results from this study showed that participants from the incentive group slept longer averaging at 9 hours a day. In contrast the group with no incentive slept less on average, with less consistent sleep such as getting 5 hours of sleep one night and then 11 hours the following night. Therefore the incentive group improved on the amount they slept on average, and also reported fewer nights of short sleep.
The second study was meant to improve on the shortcomings of the above results. In the first study, there was a lack of participants as the penalty of potentially losing exam marks deterred them. For this reason, the penalty was removed but the reward decreased to gaining few additional exam points. This alteration led to the recruitment of double the participants. Another flaw from the previous study was that the incentive group versus the non-incentive group were composed of entirely different people. In this study however, participants were compared to themselves to eliminate people differences. This was done as student sleep patterns were measured at the start of the semester with no incentive for the baseline, and then again during exam season with the incentive. The last change that was made consisted of the sleep duration. Now, participants did not have to maintain the 8 hour average sleep per day, instead they were required to increase their sleep duration by 20 minutes from their initial baseline measures. The results from this study showed that participants improved their sleep duration during finals with the given incentive.
In the third study, the result of getting fewer hours of sleep versus more hours was contrasted by comparing examination results. Many students have a misconception that more sleep will lead to poor performance on exams due to decreasing the amount of time to study. Altogether, this paper supported the fact that above statement is false, as more sleep correlated with higher exam marks. This is due to the fact that those participants who successfully completed the 8 hour sleep challenge in the first study actually showed improved grades relative to the students who opted out of the challenge.
In conclusion, students should not give into the misconception of sleep hindering exam performance. Do yourself (and your GPA) a favour, and GET SOME SLEEP.
Source:
Scullin, M. K. (2019). The Eight Hour Sleep Challenge During Final Exams Week. Teaching of Psychology, 46(1), 55–63. https://doi.org/10.1177/0098628318816142
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