SLEEPING DEPRIVATION AND STUDENT PERFORMANCE 1

Capstone Project

Sleeping Deprivation and Student Performance

Suparom Supathum 1201

Nawinda Malikao 1205

Mahidol University International Demonstration School

Academic Year 2016-2017

Author Note

The authors wish to express their appreciation to Ms. Chomkate Ngamkaiwan for her

assistance with the research process and data analysis

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Table of Contents

Abstract................................................................................................................................3

Capstone Project Sleeping Deprivation and Student Performance......................................4

Sleeping...............................................................................................................................4

What makes you sleep?...................................................................................................4

Why sleep is important?..................................................................................................4

How much sleep is enough?............................................................................................5

School starts too early?....................................................................................................5

Sleeping deprivation........................................................................................................5

Methods...............................................................................................................................5

Participants......................................................................................................................6

Measure............................................................................................................................6

Procedure.........................................................................................................................6

Survey..............................................................................................................................6

Results..................................................................................................................................9

Discussion..........................................................................................................................10

Conclusion.........................................................................................................................11

References..........................................................................................................................12
SLEEPING DEPRIVATION AND STUDENT PERFORMANCE 3

Abstract

Both sleep deprivation and poor sleep quality are prominent in Thai society, especially

among high school students. Sleep problems are often a primary problem rather than secondary

to depression. The purpose of this study was to determine if sleep quality and quantity were

associated with the academic performance. By studying in 121 current students attending at

MUIDS, the finding suggested that there was a significant negative correlation between students

GPA and sleeping time length. The student with sleep duration less than 6 hours (sleep

deprivation) tends to perform poorer academic performance than those with longer sleep

duration.

Keywords: Academic performance, Sleeping deprivation, GPA

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Capstone Project

Sleeping Deprivation and Student Performance

There is a common believe that children are not getting enough sleep because of the

school starting time and homework. In addition to environment, water, and food, the only other

biological necessity our bodies require is sleep (Gregory, Xie & Mengel, 2004). Getting enough

quality sleep at the right times can help protect the health, quality of life, safely, and especially

academic performance among children and adolescents.

Sleeping

What makes you sleep?

The internal body clock controls when people is awake and when the body is to sleep.

It typically has a 24-hour circadian rhythm. Two processes interact to control this rhythm. The

first is a pressure, which is known for adenosine. When people are awake, adenosines level in

the brain will continue to rise. The increasing level of this compound signals a shift toward sleep

and the body will break down while people sleep.

The second process involved the internal body clock which relates to environment. Light

and darkness. For instance, light signals received through eyes tell a special area in the brain that

it is daytime. The chemicals involve in this process are melatonin and cortisol. The body releases

melatonin that signals the body to feel drowsy during the night time and releases cortisol to

prepare the body to wake up.

Why sleep is important?

Studies show that a quality nights sleep improves learning and problem-solving skills. It

also helps people pay attention, make decision, and be creative.

SLEEPING DEPRIVATION AND STUDENT PERFORMANCE 5

Lacking of sleep alters activity in some part of the brain. Not only people will have trouble

making decision, making problem, and/or controlling self-emotion or behavior, but also, it has

been linked to depression, suicide, and risk-taking behavior. Children who are sleep deficient

may have problem getting themselves in society, mood swinging also they may have problems

paying attention, and they may get lower grades and feel stressed.

How much sleep is enough?

Sleep is especially important for children and adolescence. Studies have shown that teens

they may require anywhere from 8.5 to 10 hours instead of 7 to 8 hours of in adults.

Sleeping deprivation

Sleeping deprivation causes daytime sleepiness, reduced neurocognitive processing and

impaired psychomotor performance. The sign and symptoms of sleep deficiency may differ

between children and adults/ Children who are sleep deficient might be overly active and have

problems paying attention. They also misbehave, and their school performance can suffer. Being

chronically tired to the point of fatigue or exhaustion means that we are less likely to perform

well. Neurons do not fire optimally, muscles are not rested, and the bodys organ systems are not

synchronized. Lapses in focus from sleep deprivation can even result in accidents or injury.

School starts too early?

Multiple studies suggest a direct correlation between school start times and student

academic performance. The schools that start at 8.30 has higher average of the students GPA

than those that start earlier.

SLEEPING DEPRIVATION AND STUDENT PERFORMANCE 6

Methods

Although a small number of previous studies have linked student sleep habits to lower

academic performance, this studies have had small subject samples to prove if the claim is true

or not. The purpose of the current study is to examine the relationship between sleep deprivation

and academic performance. It was hypothesized that participants who receive inadequate sleep

would have lower academic performance (as indicated by GPA) than participants with no sleep

deprivation.

Participants

For each recommendation identified, students actual sleep time and grade were

determined by identifying the questionnaires reporting the sleep duration of high school students

in different grades and different genders. A total of 121 MUIDS students participated in this

study. Of this sample 44,42, and 35 were in grade 10, 11, and 12 accordingly. And of this sample,

50 were male and 71 were female.

Measure

Demographic survey

Participants completed a brief demographic questionnaire includes questions about grade

level, gender, GPA, and their average sleeping time.

Procedure

An online, anonymous, self-administered questionnaire was randomly administrated to

grade ten to grade twelve at Mahidol University International Demonstration School.

Survey

Students were requested to voluntarily complete an online anonymous survey using the

online tool Google Doc forms. The survey was administered to explore: (1) Students sleep
SLEEPING DEPRIVATION AND STUDENT PERFORMANCE 7

duration and academic performance and (2) differences in students perceptions due to gender,

academic year and GPA.

Given that : (a) Sleep deprivation was defined as less than 6 hours of sleep per night. (b)

Academic performance was based on the self-reported GPA, which is a common parameter to

determine academic performance in sleep-related research. GPA was categorized into excellent

academic performance (GPA 3.5/4.0), good academic performance (GPA 3.0/3.5), and

poor academic performance (GPA < 3.0). This dichotomous categorization was used in

previous research for evaluation of the relationship between sleep and academic performance.

Students survey

1. Gender
Male
Female
2. Academic year
Grade 10
Grade 11
Grade 12
3. Cumulative grade point average (cGPA)
Below 2.5
2.5 to 3.0
3.0 to 3.5
3.5 to 4.0
4. Approximately sleep duration per night
Less than 5 hours
5 to 6 hours
6 to 7 hours
7 to 8 hours
more than 8 hours
5. Emotion
Happy
Sad
Angry
Fear
Disgust
6. Daytime sleepiness
Never
SLEEPING DEPRIVATION AND STUDENT PERFORMANCE 8

Less than period

1 period
more than 2 periods
7. How often
Often
Sometimes
Seldom
None
SLEEPING DEPRIVATION AND STUDENT PERFORMANCE 9

Results

Table 1: School year and GPA

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Table 2: Gender and GPA

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Table 3: Sleep duration and GPA

Table 4: Sleep duration and daytime sleepiness

SLEEPING DEPRIVATION AND STUDENT PERFORMANCE 12

Table 5: Sleep duration and daytime sleepiness

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141 students participated in the survey with an overall response rate of 50 (41.3%) were

male students and 71 (58.7%) were female students. There were 44 (36.4%), 42 (34.7%), 35

(28.9%), sophomore, junior, and senior students respectively. According to the dichotomous GPA

categorization, the 60 of 121were excellent academic achievers (49.6%), 17 were good academic

achievers (14%), and 43 were low academic achievers (26.4).

More than half of the participants (74 out of 121 or 61.1%) reported that they have

inadequate sleep (less than 6 hours per night) and only 4.1% reported that they sleep over 8 hours

which is the recommended time for the adolescents to sleep.

According to gender, there were statistically significant differences of means between

male and female students. Females have slightly higher average GPA than males.
SLEEPING DEPRIVATION AND STUDENT PERFORMANCE 14

According to academic year, there were statistically significant differences of means

between sophomore, junior, and seniors students. Senior has the highest average of the GPA

followed by junior and sophomore respectively.

According to sleep duration and the relevance with GPA, there was statistically

significant difference of means. The participants who received just enough sleep get slightly

higher GPA while those who received inadequate amount of sleep get slightly lower GPA.
According to sleep duration and mood, 64.5% of students reported that they feel happy

followed by feeling sad and angry, 19.8% and 12.4% respectively.

Only quarter of the overall students report that they never sleep during the class while the

average of sleep time during the class on the rest of student is 1 hours which the most common

class is the first period.

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Discussion

Students generally do not recognize the negative impact of sleep deprivation on cognitive

functioning and academic performance. Regarding to this study, only a few students had

misconceptions with the negative impact of sleep deprivation on academic performance and

mood. Of note, the results show that the GPA is affected by the sleep duration. Therefore, this

issue should be critically considered since getting inadequate sleep due to ones responsible that

caused school activities (eg. school works, extracurricular, and club) also impacts on students

sleep duration.
Striving for excellent academic performance is one of the top explanation why the

students face sleeping deprivation in order to meet and continue their target grade.
Furthermore, sleep deprivation is expected to be higher in senior students rather than

those in junior and sophomore because they are taking more responsibilities on going to the

university and the burden of grade 12s curriculum.

Daytime sleepiness is a probable result of sleep deprivation as it was found to be higher

in poor academic achieving students than good academic achieving students.

Delaying school start times or reducing the responsibilities for adolescents have been

proposed as a policy change to address insufficient sleep in this population and potentially to

improve students academic performance.

SLEEPING DEPRIVATION AND STUDENT PERFORMANCE 16

Conclusion

In conclusion, our studies showed that students have a greatly impact from sleep

deprivation on academic performance (GPA). The student with just enough sleep time has

significant higher GPA than those with inadequate sleep. The student in 12 grade has slightly

higher average GPA than junior and sophomore and female has better academic performance

than male does. Most of the student reported to feel happy and somehow those with inadequate

sleep informs that they feel sad and angry during the day.
SLEEPING DEPRIVATION AND STUDENT PERFORMANCE 17

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