Every college student I have ever talked to has advised me to not take an 8 am. As I scheduled my 8 am math course I reassure myself that it wouldn’t be that bad. My high school classes started at 7:30, so an 8:00 class would give me an extra half hour. As we are approaching the halfway mark through the semester, I can assure you, It’s THAT bad. This leads me to wonder how class time affects student productivity and what time of day is the most beneficial for learning.
The KBM journal of Science education published a study conducted by Stella K. Kantartzi1, Sherrice Allen, Khalid Lodhi, Robert L. Grier IV and My Abdelmajid Kassem to determine how study factors affect student’s performance in the different biology classes. They analyzed class time, gender, semester, absences and class difficulty. 
The results they found about class time varied. In the biology 150 class, students who attended afternoon classes recieved better grades than those who took morning ones. In the BOTN 210 class, class time had no affect on preformance, and in BIOL 330, students who took morning classes received higher grades. The results of this study suffer from the texas sharp shooter fallacy. They are looking at too many variables, making it hard to find one reason why morning or afternoon classes are better. They also talk about class difficulty and how more students might be absent for morning classes, which will obviously affect their grades. Then they go on to talk about how gender and semester affect absences. There is too much going on to draw an accurate conclusion from this study. A more accurate study would be conducted by looking at grades from morning and afternoon classes from classes of the same subject and difficulty.
A study conducted by psychologists, Serge Onyper and Pamela Thacher at St. Lawrence found some statistical data proving a correlation between class time and preformance. She concluded that “for every hour of class that you have later, you get about a .02 difference, so three hours of difference between class start times will result in a .06 diffference in grades” (Reimold 1).
The article also reviewed findings from Diamondback at the UNiversity of Maryland. They brought up an interesting point about students’ sleep schedule and alcohol consumption. Their study showed that students who have later classes, might not always get more sleep. They also have the tendency to drink more since they don’t have to wake up early. But, the drinking disrupts their sleep so are the really benefiting? Students with morning classes tend to stay in on weeknights and maintain a daily routine.
That all being said, I don’t know one fully rested, non- sleep deprived college student. Although statistics prove that morning classes equate to better grades, every student is different. Some people love mornings while others simply can’t function academically at 8 am even with 8 hours of sleep. When scheduling classes, think about whats best for you academically, not socially. There is plenty of time to drink on the weekend!
Another thing to possibly consider in the length of the classes that you take. If classes are too short, you wont be able to get all of the information needed to successfully pass the course and actually learn something. If the classes are too long, it is possible that students will become bored and start to tune out the instructor and will not learn anything because they are not paying attention, or the are being distracted by their cell phones or other students in the class.
I am actually very surprised by this article, as I have always guessed that it would be too hard to pay attention in 8 AM’s because of the lack of sleep others get. Speaking from person experience, most people tend to go to bed around the same time regardless of what time they have to wake up in the morning. I will go to bed at 1 regardless of whether or not I have a 9 AM or a 12 PM class. Then again, I may not be the majority. However, the reason I was most surprised by the outcome of this outcome is that it has been shown that teens in high school do better when school starts later . This is because young people’s (including college aged students) biological clock is set later than adults, and this makes it very hard for them to fall asleep before 11. With an early class, they will be sleep deprived. I would have thought the same about college aged students!
I think the studies that have been conducted on this topic have too many other variables in order to draw an accurate possible conclusion. I agree that at the end of the day it varies based on the preference of a student and whether or not they can function in the morning, or handle the social pressures associated with knowing they don’t have to wake up early in the morning. I know for my local high school, they considered moving the starting time to be an hour later, so students would get more sleep, but after researching the school board executives found out that students would probably just sleep an hour later, rather than receiving that extra hour of sleep, which I’d have to agree.
I would never want to take an 8 am class but at the same time I would be more exhausted taking a night class, once I wake up and get out of bed I am up, the hard part is just physically getting up. A study at St. Lawerence University, http://sundial.csun.edu/2011/09/morning-classes-prove-to-be-better-for-college-students/, discovered that taking a morning class leads to better grades and better understanding of a course, rather than taking a night class and wanting to just fall asleep. So I am still unsure if morning or night classes lead to better grades in any course.