Like Sisyphus with his stone, with roughly the same enthusiasm, millions of students flock to their universities first thing in the morning every class day. To many others the stone passes over them and they give up going to the inaugural class of the day. Now, a study opens the melon: Are classes first thing in the morning really necessary?
That there are people who are more prone to getting up early and people whose sheets stick more easily is something we all know. Now a new study carried out by researchers from different universities in Singapore has estimated some of the consequences in the academic field.
Perhaps the most obvious is the worst attendance. The researchers found 10% less attendance in classes held first thing in the morning (which in the setting in which the study was carried out began at 8:00 in the morning).
The study also observed a curious relationship between early classes and grades. Although the grades for the subjects taught in the morning did not differ significantly from the grades for the subjects with classes that were further behind, those students who had a higher proportion of first-morning classes on their schedule achieved lower grades on their curriculum.
It doesn’t end there. The researchers combined various data sources in their analysis. To analyze attendance, they relied on data on WiFi activity on campus. They supplemented this data with academic information from several tens of thousands of students.
For your study now published in the magazine Nature Human Behaviourthe researchers also used data on virtual campus access from the full sample of students and actimetry data available for a subgroup of 181 students to estimate students’ sleep patterns.
They thus verified that the students tended to go to bed at the same hours regardless of their schedules and that therefore the students with earlier schedules simply slept fewer hours.
Or at least at night. Thanks to the actimetry data, the researchers also found that the students compensated for this lack of night sleep with naps throughout the day when they had early classes.
It is not the first time that scientists have sided with students. In 2014, American experts called for delaying the start time of classes in North American institutes until 10 in the morning. This could, according to the study, help students (immersed in physiological changes typical of adolescence) improve their academic performance and reduce risks to their health.
It seems that better academic performance is at the center of the various studies. However, outside the student environment we also observed important problems at bedtime. In Spain the problem is important. We are leaders in benzodiazepine consumption. Maybe we should change our way of fighting it in the morning.
Imagen | Philippe Bout
