Abstract
Objectives
The objective of this study is to determine to what degree sleep disturbances predict
academic success, relative to other known risk factors for decreased academic performance.
Methods
We performed regression analyses on data from the Spring 2009 American College Health
Association National College Health Assessment II dataset (n=55,322 students) to isolate
the relative contribution of the frequency of sleep problems in the previous week
to GPA and the likelihood of withdrawing from a course. In our estimations, we also
controlled for other factors that influence academic success such as demographic and
academic variables, drug and alcohol use, perceived stress, and employment hours.
Results
Sleep disturbances were found to be a significant independent predictor of academic
problems; on average, each additional day per week that a student experienced sleep
problems raised the probability of dropping a course by 10% and lowered the cumulative
GPA by 0.02. Factors such as stress, binge drinking, marijuana and other illicit drug
use, which typically receive more attention by university administrators, had similar
or relatively smaller negative associations with academic success as compared to disturbed
sleep. Approximately three quarters of students surveyed reported never receiving
information about sleep from their university.
Conclusions
Sleep education represents an underutilized opportunity for universities to maximize
retention rates and academic success.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: August 03, 2018
Accepted:
July 10,
2018
Received in revised form:
May 30,
2018
Received:
January 28,
2018
Identification
Copyright
© 2018 Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of National Sleep Foundation.
