Abstract
Background
The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between sleep duration, wake time, and hours studying on high school grades and performance on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT)/ American College Testing (ACT) college entrance exams.
Method
Data were collected from 13,071 recently graduated high school seniors who were entering college in the fall of 2014. A column proportions z test with a Bonferroni adjustment was used to analyze proportional differences. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to examine mean group differences.
Results
Students who woke up prior to 6 a.m. and got less than 8 h of sleep (27 %) were significantly more likely to report studying 11 or more hours per week (30 %), almost double the rate compared to students who got more than 8 h of sleep and woke up the latest (16 %). Post hoc results revealed students who woke up at 7 a.m. or later reported significantly higher high school grades than all other groups (p < 0.001), with the exception of those students who woke up between 6:01 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. and got eight or more hours of sleep. The highest reported SAT/ACT scores were from the group that woke up after 7 a.m. but got less than 8 h sleep (M = 1099.5). Their scores were significantly higher than all other groups.
Conclusion
This study provides additional evidence that increased sleep and later wake time are associated with increased high school grades. However, this study also found that students who sleep the longest also reported less studying and lower SAT/ACT scores.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
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Cole, J.S. Do later wake times and increased sleep duration of 12th graders result in more studying, higher grades, and improved SAT/ACT test scores?. Sleep Breath 20, 1053–1057 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11325-016-1341-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11325-016-1341-0