See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: [Link]

net/publication/311364296

EFFECT OF SLEEP PATTERN ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF

UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

Conference Paper · November 2016

DOI: 10.21125/iceri.2016.1096

CITATION READS

1 4,086

4 authors, including:

Benedict Chico Agoha Olujide Adekeye

Covenant University Ota Ogun State, Nigeria Covenant University Ota Ogun State, Nigeria
34 PUBLICATIONS 132 CITATIONS 70 PUBLICATIONS 563 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

David O. Igbokwe
Baze University Abuja
55 PUBLICATIONS 431 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Benedict Chico Agoha on 05 November 2020.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

EFFECT OF SLEEP PATTERN ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE
OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS
Benedict Agoha, Olujide A. Adekeye, Miriam U. Abengowe, David O. Igbokwe
Department of Psychology, College of Leadership Development Studies, Covenant university
(NIGERIA)

Abstract
There have been studies that demonstrate the impact of sleep on both implicit and explicit memory. Of
particular interest is that sleep has been shown to aid memory consolidation. This holds some
implication for students, most of whom sleep for considerably very little amount of time, whereas they
require sufficient amount of sleep to consolidate memory for material learned during the day. This
study was therefore designed to investigate the possible impact of sleep on the academic
achievement of undergraduate students. The study participants were 300 undergraduate students
drawn from about twenty Department of a private university in Nigeria. 152 of the participants were
female and the rest were male. The School Sleep Survey Habit Scale previously validated in Nigeria
by one of the authors (IDO) was used to measure sleep habit, while academic performance was
measured as self-reported grade. The result of Analysis of variance using SPSS XX showed a
significant effect of Sleepiness on Academic Performance F (8, 211)=3.73, P<.01, and on Cumulative
Grade Point Average, F (4, 190) = 3.82, P<.005. The study also showed that stimulant intake
significantly impacted on Sleep habit. It was concluded that to enhance student's academic
achievement counseling centres should endeavour to include sleep in their orientation programme for
students. Besides, it would be necessary not to cram up the programme in such a manner that would
rob the students of adequate rest and sleep.
Keywords: Sleep Habit, Academic performance, Undergraduate students, Memory.

1 INTRODUCTION
Sleep is a state of consciousness in which responsiveness to external stimulation is reduced. It is also
accompanied by complex and predictable changes in physiology. Polysomnographic recordings in the
laboratory indicate changes in brain waves and muscle. Three of these recordings, the
electroencephalogram (EEG), electrooculogram (EOG), and electromyogram (EMG) have been
recognized by psychophysiologists as standard measures for sleep (Pinel, 2011). A major difference
between sleep and wakefulness is the reduced ability to respond to stimulus due to change in
underlying physiology.
The purpose of sleep-related activities have been focus of scientific enquiry over the years. Meddis
(1975) proposed the adaptive function of sleep. He argued that sleep helps animals reduce the risk of
harm from predators during the part of the day when they are most vulnerable. During sleep, the
animal conserves energy for wake time activity as indicated by the diminished metabolic activity,
reduced muscular tension, blood pressure, and heart rate (Wickens, 2009). Another perspective was
put forward by Oswald in which he pointed out the restorative role of sleep. He suggested that sleep
restores depleted resources of energy, removes waste from muscles, and repairs cell. Most of these
repair processes are said to occur during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep (Oswald, 1980; Hartman,
1984; Stern & Morgane, 1974). Sleep has also been linked to cognitive activities. It has been pointed
out that poor retention of information occurs if individuals are deprived of sleep prior to learning
(Moorcroft, 1993). Moreover, information is organized, consolidated, incorporated and stored during
sleep (Paller & Voss, 2004). Sleep helps us reorganize and store information especially during REM.
This theory also holds that sleep enables us learn new skills and how to make use of them. Some
research also suggests that sleep helps to glue newly acquired information into the long term memory.
In support of this assumption, Karni, Tanne, Rubenstein, Askenasy, and Sagi (1994) showed that
perceptual task memory consolidation in humans depends on REM sleep. Their study suggested that
sleep is mandatory for memory trace formation in this task. There have been several other studies
(Ambrosini et al., 2001). A notable study is that of Rani, Sarkis, Javad, Milena, Pavlova, and Bubrick et
al (2016). They studied sleep-dependent memory consolidation in patients with focal epilepsy. They
assessed declarative memory retention rate in in participants with focal epilepsy and found that

Proceedings of ICERI2016 Conference ISBN: 978-84-617-5895-1

14th-16th November 2016, Seville, Spain 0386
retention rate of 62.7% over 12 hour of wakefulness and 83.6% over another 12 hour which included
sleep. The difference tested significant at ρ< 0.04. The Performance on overnight testing correlated
highly with the duration of slow wave sleep (SWS) (r = +0.63, p < 0.05). They also found that day time
seizure did not affect retention, whereas night time seizure resulted in more than 30% drop in
retention. Some other studies (e.g. Cellini, Torre, Stegagno, and Sarlo, 2016) have shown that even
day time nap facilitates memory consolidation regardless of the absence of REM or NREM sleep. It is
considerably clear from the above literature that sleep is important for memory consolidation in
humans.

1.1 Sleep Patterns/Schedules and Academic Performance

Circadian rhythms, consistent changes in mental and physical qualities that happen in the process of a
day, have been thought to influence a wide variety of human activities. Based on individual
differences in circadian pattern (morningness-eveningness), people may be classified along a
conceptual dimension of morningness-eveningness trait. The morning type (M-T) person is mostly
alert in the morning, while the evening type (E-T) is mostly alert in the evening (Önder, Beşoluk,
İskender, Masal, & Demirhan, 2014; Natale & Cicogna, 2002). These traits may be determined or
influenced by genetics (Adan et al., 2012) and other characteristics like age, gender, culture, social
and environmental factors (Randler, Vollmer, Beşoluk, Önder, & Horzum, 2013). Disturbance of the
sleep-wake pattern of an individual may affect attention to details and concentration as is commonly
experienced in jetlag. It seems therefore that chronotype would confer academic advantages on some
students, and disadvantage on others. Expectedly, a number of studies have found significant
relationships between chronotype and academic achievement. Relationships between chronotype and
academic achievement. In keeping with earlier studies (Kirby & Kirby, 2006; Randler & Frech, 2006)
Onder et al (2014) found among university students that earlier chronotypes obtained higher CGPAs
than later chronotypes. They also observed better sleep quality and academic motivation in their
female sample.
Similar results have been found for school children. Merdad, Merdad, Nassif, El-Derwi, and Wali
(2014) noted that lower grade points was more prevalent among students who experienced reversed
sleep cycle on week days. Other researchers (Lauren, Asarnow, McGlinchey, & Harvey, 2013;
Giannotti, Cortesi, Sebastiani, & Ottaviano, 2002; Giannotti & Cortesi, 2002; Wagner & Roberts, 2003)
demonstrated similar negative association of eveningness on academic achievement. Preckel,
Lipnevich, Schneider, and Roberts (2011) conducted a meta-analytic study in which they found that
eveningness correlated positively with cognitive ability but inversely with academic achievement.
Conversely, morningness correlated negatively with cognitive ability and positively with academic
achievement. These studies show that sleep pays important role in cognitive functioning and
academic performance.
Studies on Sleep duration is neither here nor there. Titova, Hogenkamp, Jacobsson, Feldman,
Schioth, and Benedict (2014) studied a cohort of 40000 school children and noted that self-reported
sleep disturbance and short duration of sleep, defined as sleep less than 7 hours, predicted academic
failure. Their findings agree with Asarnow et al., (2013), and with Dewald, Meijer, Oort. Kerkhof and
Bogels (2010). But others like Gruber, Somerville, Enros, Paquin, and Kestler et al (2014) and Tonetti,
Fabbri, Filardi, Martoni and Natale (2015) have found that sleep efficiency rather than duration is
necessary for quality academic performance.

1.2 Aims of the Study

Although scientific literature is replete with studies which clearly demonstrate the effects of sleep on
academic achievement, only little contribution or no has come from Nigeria. This is important as
ethnicity and a wide range of differences between human impacts on chronotype. Our aims therefore
are to determine the effect of sleepiness and sleep-wake behavior on academic performance, defined
as cumulative grade point average (CGPA).

0387
2 METHOD

2.1 Participants
The participants were 300 fully resident undergraduate student volunteers from a privately-owned
university in Nigeria. 148 (49.33%) were male and 152 (50.67%) were female. They ranged between
15-21 years in age Mean = 17.5, SD = 1.2).

2.2 Instrument
The School Sleep Habits Survey (SSHS) developed at Bradly Hospital was used to measure
sleepiness and sleep-wake cycle. The SSHS is a sixty-three (63) item, self-report scale that measures
the sleep habit of adolescence. The scale also has four subscales which are: the sleepiness scale, the
sleep/wake behavior problem scale, the depressive mood scale and the stimulant intake subscale.
The SSHS has been validated in different countries and also Nigeria by one of the present authors
(IDO). The sleepiness, sleep/wake behavior problem, and depressive mood subscales showed
internal consistency of .70, .75, and .79 respectively. Cronbach α of the subscales were 0.87 for
sleepiness, 0.71 for stimulant intake. Cronbach alpha for sleep-wake behavior subscale was 0.78, and
0.87 for the depressed mood subscale.

3 RESULTS
One-Way analysis of variance was performed on the data obtained using the using the Statistical
Package of Social Science, Nineteenth Edition (SPSS-20). The result is presented below.

Figure 1: Representation of the effect of sleepiness on academic performance (CGPA)

Figure 1 above is the graphical representation of the effect of sleepiness on academic performance. It
can be seen that persons with CGPA 0.2-2.49 (Third class result) reportedly experienced more
sleepiness. Sleepiness then dropped continuously as CGPA increased. Table 1 shows the result of
one-way analysis of the data.

Table 1: Effect of sleepiness on CGPA

SOV Sums of Squares df Means Square F Sig

Between Groups 466.53 4 116.63 3.82 .005
Within Groups 5796.29 190 30.51
Total 6262.82 194

0388
Table 1 above shows the effect of sleepiness on CGPA of the participants. The result indicates that
sleepiness had significant effect on the CGPA of students (f (4190) =3.82, ρ<.01). Figure 1 is a
graphical representation of the effects of sleepiness on CGPA.

Figure 2: Effect of sleep-wake behaviour on academic performance

Figure 2 above shows the plot of mean sleep-wake behavior scores on academic performance
(CGPA). The plot reveals an inverse pattern of relationship between both variables, suggesting that
academic performance tend to drop as sleep-wake cycle increases during sleep. The ANOVA table is
presented below.

Table 2: The effect of sleep-wake behavior on CGPA

SOV Sums of Squares df Means Square F Sig

Between Groups 97.87 4 24.47 .42 .79
Within Groups 12158.65 208 58.45
Total 12256.52 212

The table above shows that the effect of sleep-wake behavior on academic performance was not
significant. This is in spite of the inverse relationship pattern shown by figure 2.

4 DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSION

The results of this study indicated that sleepiness has significant effect on academic performance.
This is in line with earlier findings like that of Shin, Kim, Lee, Ahn, and Joo (2003) who found
significant effect of sleep habits and excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) on school performance in
senior high school students. The Epworth Sleepiness Scale defined the excessive daytime sleepiness
of each participant. Sleep-wake behavior on the other hand the not significantly impact on academic
performance, even though a clear pattern of inverse relationship was shown. This result contradicts
BaHammam, Alaseem, Alzakri, Almeneessier and Sharif (2012) who found that that decreased
nocturnal sleep time, late bedtimes during weekdays and weekends, catch-up sleep on weekends and
increased daytime sleepiness were negatively associated with academic performance in medical
students. We conclude from the result of this study that sleep is an important determinant of academic
performance.

4.1 Implication
This holds some implication for policy makers, school administrators, counselors, and educators
planning to improve students’ academic performance. Most times underachieving students are not
evaluated for sleep disorders or their sleep behaviours. It is possible that some academic failures may
relate to sleep dysfunction, or be pointer to some underlying dysfunctions that interfere with the

0389
restorative role of sleep. Therefore, efforts should be made at considering the potential benefits of
taking a multidisciplinary approach towards and promoting the academic and behavioural wellness of
students.

REFERENCES
[1] Ambrosini, M.V. & Guiditta, A. (2001). Learning and sleep: The sequential hypothesis. Sleep
Medicine Review, 5, 477-90.
[2] Adan, A., Archer, S. N., Hidalgo, M. P., Di Milia, L., Natale, V., & Randler, C. (2012). Circadian
typology: A comprehensive review. Chronobiology International, 29(9), 1153–1175.
[3] Asarnow, L. D., McGlinchey, E. & Harvey, A. G. (2013). The effects of bedtime and sleep
duration on academic and emotional outcomes in a nationally representative sample of
adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Health, 54, 350-356.
[4] Cellini, N., Torre, J., Stegagno, L., & Sarlo, M. (2016). Sleep before and after learning promotes
the consolidation of both neutral and emotional information regardless of REM presence.
Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 133, 136-44. doi:10.1016/j. nlm. 2016.06.015.
[5] Dewald, J. F., Meijer, A. M., Oort, F .J. Kerkhof, G. A. & Bogels, S. M. (2010). The influence of
sleep quality, sleep duration and sleepiness on school performance in children and adolescents:
A meta-analytic review. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 14, 179–189
[6] Fischer, S., Hallschmid, M., Elsner, L. A., & Born, J. (2002). Sleep forms memory for finger
skills. PNAS, 99, 11987-91.
[7] Giannotti, F. & Cortesi, F. (2002). Sleep patterning and daytime functioning in Adolesce nce:
An epidemiological survey of an Italian high school student sample. Sleep, 27, 299-304.
[8] Giannotti, F., Cortesi, F., Sebastiani, T., & Ottaviano, S. (2002). Circadian preference, sleep and
daytime behaviour in adolescence. Journal of Sleep Research, 11, 3, 191-9.
[9] Gruber, R., Somerville, G., Enros, P. Paquin, S., Kestler, M., & Gillies-Poitras, E. (2014). Sleep
efficiency (but not sleep duration) of healthy school-age children is associated with grades in
math and languages. Sleep Medicine, 15, 1517–1525.
[10] Hartmann E (1984): The Nightmare: The Psychology and Biology of Terrifying Dreams. New
York: Basic Books.
[11] Karni, A., Tanne, D., Rubenstein, B.S., Askenasy, J. J. M., and Sagi, D. (1994). Dependence on
REM sleep of overnight improvement of a perceptual skill. Science, 265, 679- 682.
[12] Meddis, R. (1975). On the function of sleep. Animal Behaviour, 23, 3, 676–691.
[13] Merdad, R. A., Merdad, L .A, Nassif, R. A., El-Derwi, D., & Wali, S.O. (2014). Sleep habits in
adolescents of Saudi Arabia; distinct patterns and extreme sleep schedules. Sleep Medicine,
15, 1370–1378.
[14] Moorcroft, W. H. (1993). Sleep, dreaming, and sleep disorders. New York: University Press of
America.
[15] Natale, V., & Cicogna, P. C. (2002). Morningness–eveningness dimensions: Is it really a
continuum? Personality and Individual Differences, 32, 809–816.
[16] Önder, I., Beşoluk, S., İskender,M., Masal, E., & Demirhan, E. (2014). Circadian Preferences,
sleep quality and sleep patterns, personality, academic motivation and academic achievement
of university students. Learning and Individual Differences, 32, 184–192.
[17] Oswald, I. (1980). Sleep studies in clinical pharmacology. British Journal of Clinical
Pharmacology, 10,317-326.
[18] Paller, K. A., & Voss, J .A. (2004). Memory reactivation and consolidation during [Link]
Mem, 11, 6, 664–670. doi: 10.1101/lm.75704
[19] Preckel, F., Lipnevich, A.A., Schneider, S., & Roberts, R.D. (2011). Chronotype, cognitive
abilities, and academic achievement: A meta-analytic investigation. Learning and Individual
Differences, 21, 483–492.

0390
 [20] Randler, C., & Frech, D. (2006). Correlation between morningness–eveningness and final
school leaving exams. Biological Rhythm Research, 37, 233–239.
[21] Randler, C., Vollmer, C., Beşoluk, Ş., Önder, İ., & Horzum, M. B. (2013). Age and gender
differences in morningness–eveningness in Turkish adolescents and young adults. Biological
Rhythm Research, 45, 2, 277-284. [Link] 10.1080/ 09291016.2013.805915.
[22] Sarkis, R. A., Alam, J., Pavlova, M. K., Dworetzky, B. A., Pennell, P. B., Stickgold, R. & Bubrick,
E. J. (2016). Sleep-dependent memory consolidation in the epilepsy monitoring unit: A pilot
study, Clinical Neurophysiology, 127, 2785–2790.
[23] Shin, C., Kim, J., Lee, S., Ahn, Y., & Joo, S. (2003). Sleep habits, excessive daytime sleepiness
and school performance in high school students. Psychiatry & Clinical Neurosciences, 57, 4,
451-453.
[24] Stern, W. C. & Morgane, P. J. (1974). Theoretical view of KEM sleep function: maintenanceof
catecholamine systems in the central nervous system. Behavioural Biology, 11, 1- 32.
[25] Titova, O. E., Hogenkamp, P. S., Jacobsson, J. A., Feldman, I. , Schiöth, H. B., & Benedict, C.
(2015). Associations of self-reported sleep disturbance and duration with academic failure in
community-dwelling Swedish adolescents: Sleep and academic performance at school. Sleep
Medicine, 16, 87–93.
[26] Wagner, D., & Roberts, R. D. (2003). Zusammenhänge zwischen Chronizität (LOCI), Intelligenz
und Persönlichkeit [Relationship between chronotype (LOCI), intelligence, and personality].
Retrieved from [Link] [Link] /psycho2 /publi/
papers/halle_2003_wagener.pdf

0391

View publication stats