*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on PsychCentral.
As the college semester nears the end, an innovative experiment has shown the benefits of averaging eight hours of sleep for five nights during final exams week.
The study suggests that instead of pulling an all-nighter to cram for a final exam, students are better served by improving their sleep habit.
In the study, Baylor University researchers gave students given extra points if they met “The 8-hour Challenge” and discovered that those who successfully completed the challenge did better than those who snubbed (or flubbed) the incentive.
Poor sleep is common during finals as students cut back on sleep, deal with more stress, use more caffeine and are exposed to more bright light, all of which may disrupt sleep. Fewer than 10 percent of undergraduates maintain the recommended average of 8 hours a night or even the recommended minimum of 7 hours, previous research shows.
“Better sleep helped rather than harmed final exam performance, which is contrary to most college students’ perceptions that they have to sacrifice either studying or sleeping. And you don’t have to be an ‘A’ student or have detailed education on sleep for this to work,” said Michael Scullin, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience in Baylor’s College of Arts & Sciences.
While students who successfully met the sleep challenge received extra points, the “mini-incentive” was not included in the analysis of how well they performed on the finals, stressed Elise King, assistant professor of interior design in Baylor’s Robbins College of Health and Human Sciences.
“They didn’t just perform well because they received extra points,” she said. “Students know that sacrificing sleep to complete school work is not a healthy choice, but they assume they don’t have a choice, often remarking that there aren’t enough hours in the day for coursework, extracurriculars, jobs, etc. This removes that excuse.”
Research participants included undergraduate interior design students and students in upper-level psychology and neuroscience classes.
“The students didn’t need the extra credit to perform better, and they weren’t really better students from the get-go,” Scullin said. “If you statistically correct for whether a student was an A, B, C, or D student before their final exam, sleeping 8 hours was associated with a four-point grade boost — even prior to applying extra credit.”
The collaborative interior design study appears in the Journal of Interior Design. Scullin’s study of psychology students was published in Teaching of Psychology.
The 8 hour challenge increased the percentage of 8 and 7 hour sleepers to 59 percent and 86 percent respectively. Students who took part in the challenge slept an average of 98 minutes more per night compared to students who were not offered the incentive but were monitored.
“Critically, the additional sleep did not come at a cost to project performance,” King said. “Students who showed more consistent sleep performed better than those who had less consistent sleep. And students who achieved the challenge performed as well or better than those who did not take the challenge.”
Source: PsychCentral
https://psychcentral.com/news/2018/12/04/better-sleep-can-improve-college-academic-performance-on-finals/140922.html