University students around the country can let out the biggest ‘duh’ ever as a new study reckons that 8 am lectures aren’t beneficial at all.
Early morning lectures have horrible attendance and lead to less sleep and worse grades for students, according to a new study from Singapore, published in the Nature Human Behaviour scientific journal.
The study found a whole lot of stuff which is a huge tick in the ‘why I should sleep in’ column. It states that “students with no morning classes had a higher grade point average…attendance rate for lecture classes at 08:00 was about ten percentage points lower compared with lecture classes that started at 10:00 or later… and earlier class times were associated with less sleep.”
Even if students didn’t attend the 8 am lecture, they’d lose an hour's sleep compared to days they had afternoon or no lectures. And sleep is legitimately super important!
“Inadequate sleep impairs attention and memory processes which may prevent students from reaching their full potential in class,” the study states.
They call on unis to “adopt practices that improve students’ attendance rates and sleep behaviour to position them to succeed in the classroom and workforce” i.e. let the kids hit the snooze button!
Just a couple of days ago some Kiwi experts said year 12 and 13 students should start no earlier than 9:45 am. An opinion piece in The New Zealand Medical Journal thinks the change should come because “sleep patterns change during puberty to favour later bedtimes which is why teens stay more alert than adults at night,” as reported by Newshub.
The journal article said that almost 40 (!!) per cent of teenagers in New Zealand aren’t getting adequate sleep (eight to ten hours), affecting mood, school performance, health, and behaviour.
Again, let us sleep!
