Abstract
Objectives
Research finds significant sleep deprivation among adolescents with early school start
times. This study surveyed sleep patterns in elementary school students before and
after a district-wide change to earlier start times.
Design
Students in grades 3-5 completed a self-administered sleep survey in the spring of
2009 (third grade, n = 216; fourth grade, n = 214; fifth grade, n = 259; total, n
= 689) and again in 2010 (third grade, n = 168; fourth grade, n = 194; fifth grade,
n = 263; total, n = 625), after the school start time switched from 8:20 am to 7:45 am in the Fall of 2009. Students entering grade 3 experienced a larger shift from 9:10
am to 7:45 am, due to moving from the kindergarten-second-grade building to the third-to-fifth-grade
building. Descriptive statistics quantified responses by grade.
Results
Prechange, wake time across all grades was similar; postchange, fourth and fifth graders
woke on average 30-40 minutes earlier than children in those grades the year before,
and third graders woke on average 8 minutes later. Compared to prechange, third graders
reported longer average total sleep times (24 minutes); fourth and fifth graders reported
average sleep times 4 and 9 minutes shorter, respectively, than students in those
grades the previous year. The percentage of students in each grade reporting later
weekend wake and bed times decreased postchange. Reports of sleepiness somewhat increased
for fifth graders postchange.
Conclusions
School start time change did not decrease total amount of sleep. This is the first
study of its kind to report on the effects of a start time change in elementary school
students.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: April 01, 2015
Accepted:
February 23,
2015
Received in revised form:
February 20,
2015
Received:
November 10,
2014
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
