Does your sleep schedule affect your GPA?

It is 2AM in the morning and you are about to head to bed, however, just as you turn off your laptop you suddenly remember you have an English paper due tomorrow. After minutes of debating whether to do it or not, you turn your laptop back on and you say good-bye to your sleep. Had this situation ever happened to you? As a recent college student, the situation above happened to me many times. I would often pull all nighters in order to finish my work on time. However, the side effect with all nighters is that I would get so tired during class that I would zoon out often or even fall asleep. After realizing my problem, I begin questioning if my terrible sleep habit would affect my GPA. After some research, I found my answer.

According to this article “Larks and Owls: How sleep habits affect grades”, Psychologist Jennifer Peszka did a study on a group of 89 incoming Hendrix College freshman. These college freshmen are in-between ages 17 to 20 and they are asked to fill out a questionnaire about their sleep preferences before arriving on campus. After a year, Peszka asked the same question again to the same group of 89 freshmen in Hendrix College. As a result, it turned out that the night owls (people that sleeps late) averaged a 2.84 GPA at the end of their freshman year. Larks and Robins (people that sleeps relatively early) both averaged a 3.18 GPA. From this we can see that getting more sleep can contribute more positively to one group’s average, while getting less sleep can contribute more negatively to the other group’s average.

Even though this study answered my question, I can’t just assume that sleep schedule directly affects GPA; even though there might be a correlation. However, because this experiment is based on observational studies, we can’t rule out the possibility of response bias and inaccuracy. There is a chance the students from the college may have lied about his/her final GPA on the survey. Also, because the study group of 89 college students is relatively small, this can cause an inaccuracy on the end result. From the experiment, there is also the possibility of chance and third factors that affects the GPA. For example: the person’s IQ, effort, and study habits. As a result, we can’t conclude that sleeping schedules have a direct affect on GPA.

As a result, it can be concluded that one’s sleep schedule does not necessarily affect one’s GPA. Even though the study done by Jennifer Peszka has some flaws, her study still offers evidence that supports the idea of sleep schedule affecting GPA. Personally, I believe sleep does play a part on our GPA and this is why I will plan out my schedule and try to sleep early each night.

kid sleeping

http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1903838,00.html

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/colleges-open-their-eyes-zs-are-key-gpa

5 thoughts on “Does your sleep schedule affect your GPA?

  1. Azhane Morris

    Jiang, YES! I SWEAR! Oh no, Jiang, you need to talk to an academic advisor before it’s too late or somehow someway find time to do your homework and papers way before 2 am, set reminds too or place some sticky notes around. If you have a job, say working 5 days a week, work 3 instead. If you go to club meetings, DON’T THINK YOU NEED TO GO TO EVERY MEETING because your academics are your #1 priority! If you need a friend, stop by my dorm!
    Inevitably, your sleeping pattern will affect your GPA in some way, shape or form. Like the guy Andrew talked about when his homesickness was affecting his academic achievements. These things matter. Just like he went home for a weekend to solve him problem, you have a decision to make as well.
    Yes, we all know the power sleep has on performance IN GENERAL and I think that was an “okay” study to represent that. The sample size was a little too small though and also there are other possible factors that can affect the GPA. For instance, who ate breakfast every day before class? Who was able to stay asleep the entire night instead of waking up to use the bathroom at 3am and not falling back asleep until 6am with an 8am that morning (stress can have a negative effect on GPA too)
    Also, some of the students could have gotten a lot of sleep the first half of the time period and the second half they could have gotten barely no sleep at all. Since the negative or sleep-late experience is closer to the present (when the students were asked again) their vote would count as “night owl” totally and the observations don’t consider that possibility. It is possible that the students who slept late didn’t in fact sleep late 100% of the time.
    I agree, the claim cannot be supported with the given study and data. Third confounding factors definitely play a huge role in a study of this type, but yes, once again there is some relationship. This study just symbolizes a weak link.
    Good luck getting more sleep by the way!

  2. Gregory Joseph Macqueen

    I think this study definitely hows a correlation between GPA and sleeping habits but I also agree that this study does have some flaws. In order to improve accuracy and reduce the element of chance, we would need to see a much larger study with more kids and many other universities. I can definitely relate to this because on days where I am up late studying I always have trouble paying attention the next day in my classes. A study by Michael J. Breus, phd, he proclaims that even a mere 25 minutes less of sleep can cause significant changes in school performance. Because chance is always present, we cannot be 100% sure that sleep has a direct correlation to grades, but the plethora of evidence available to us provides strong evidence showing that it does. The link below shows many of the affects that lack of sleep can have on students.
    http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/features/fixing-sleep-problems-may-improve-childs-grades-and-behavior

  3. Maxine Swift Mcgee

    While this is only an observation study, there was an experiment done about your school performance and naps. In this experiment discussed in this article, http://www.livescience.com/13125-sleep-naps-boost-memory.html, there were 44 subjects and half of them took naps and after they were tested on 100 different names. An issue with this experiment is they are all volunteers so it doesn’t accurately depict the average population. However, people who did take the nap over those who didn’t did 12% better on the test. If there could be an experiment with no bias that gave these same results I would say that sleeping does benefit our school work. Therefore, with the right amount and same consistency we can project our academic results better.

  4. Kathryn Lauren Filling

    I think that it is quite possible that sleep schedules can affect our GPA but like you said, with a small observational study, third variables and chance are extremely prevalent. Third variables are especially likely because people have different levels of intelligence, some people work harder than others, and they could be taking different classes that have different levels of difficulty. With all that being said, I still think it is in our best interest to try to get the maximum amount of sleep that we can get because then we are fresh and ready to go for the day! University of Georgia did a study that says college students get 6-6.9 hours of sleep a night when we should be getting 7-8! This will improve our mood and and health as well!

  5. Joseph Daniel Girardi

    I definitely agree that sleep affects school performance. For instance, my roommate and I have the same exact sleep schedules, but he has 8 am classes everyday and my classes don’t start until much later. He has trouble going to class and when he does, he often falls asleep or doesn’t pay attention. His grades reflect this as he’s struggling in a few of his classes. I on the other am mostly fine with getting up and going to class; I believe it’s because I get almost 2 extra hours of sleep. I decided to do some additional research on this topic and came across this survey that you should check out:

    http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2XXF7L9

Leave a Reply