Does Sleep Matter? Quality of Sleep and School Performance, a Finnish Case.
Author(s):
Raili Välimaa (presenting / submitting) Jorma Tynjälä Jari Villberg Kristiina Ojala Jukka Jokela Erkki Kronholm
Conference:
ECER 2014
Network:
08. Research on Health Education
Format:
Paper

Session Information

08 SES 08, Health Behaviours and its Determinants

Paper Session

Time:
2014-09-04
09:00-10:30
Room:
B101 Sala de Aulas
Chair:
Patricia Mannix McNamara

Contribution

Research evidence indicates that sleep-related factors in children and adolescents have a significant impact on all aspects of their functioning (Fallone et al., 2002, Dahl, 1996). An important research finding – from the viewpoint of school well-being – is the fact that there are significant correlations between students’ health behaviours and school performance. Evidence from already thirty years ago show that there is a decreased sleep duration among Finnish adolescents (Rimpelä & Rimpelä 1983, Tynjälä & Kannas 1993, Tynjälä 1999) reflecting a possible change in adolescents’ lifestyle and the use of time. Nowadays, the explosively increased use of ICT has really changed the life of contemporary adolescents with the possibility that there is even less time for sleeping (Punamäki et al. 2007, Suganuma et al. 2007). Indeed, sleep has become a critical resource for student health and school achievement. Accordingly, a recent meta-analysis concluded that sleep duration, sleep quality and sleepiness have all a small, but significant effect on children and adolescents’ school performance (Dewald et al., 2010). However, the role of gender and its possible interaction with age in these associations remains unclear (Dewald et al. 2010).   

The aim of the study was, first, to analyze the association between the sleep quality and school performance and, second, the role of gender and its possible interaction with age in the sleep-school performance association. The third aim of our study was to analyze whether there will be an association between possible secular trends in sleep and school performance. 

Method

Two extensive independent ongoing classroom surveys in Finland have accumulated a relatively long time series of information on school children’s and adolescents’ health behaviors. These are the Finnish School Health Promotion Study (FSHPS), and the Finnish part of the Health Behavior in School-Aged Children (HBSC), a WHO collaborative cross-national study. The FSHPS is a nationwide survey that has been carried out annually every spring since 1996 among all 8th and 9th-grades of comprehensive schools (14-16 years old) and from 1999 also among the first and second grades of general upper secondary schools (16-18 years olds). The FSHPS has encompassed all municipalities and consequently all schools in Finland. Thus, the data is approaching the level of population census data. In 2011 the total cumulative number of participants in the FSHPS was 1 100 492 pupils. Institutional ethics approval of the study was received from the ethical committee of the National Institute for Health and Welfare. The Finnish part of the HBSC was carried out in 1984, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006, and 2010 every spring term among samples of 11-, 13- and 15-year olds resulting in a total number of 36 091 participating pupils. The data which is based on cluster sampling is nationally representative. Ethics approval of the study was received from the Teachers’ Union and the National Board of Education in Finland. In both studies, FSHPS and HBSC, confidentiality was ensured; pupils responded anonymously to a standardized questionnaire on e.g. self-reported insomnia-related symptoms, tiredness or fatigue and school performance during a class period with a teacher overseeing the process. The associations of school performance (as a dependent variable) with different explanatory variables were analyzed in a multivariable GLM model (SAS). In the HBSC samples, prevalence estimates were calculated with 95% confidence intervals for comparisons. Data structure (class as a sample unit) was taken into account when calculating confidence intervals. The associations of school performance (report grades) with sleep quality (sleep symptoms) were assessed by Spearman’s correlation coefficients.

Expected Outcomes

The findings of the study strongly suggest that chronic or severe insomnia-related symptoms (difficulties in falling asleep and nocturnal awakenings) as well as daytime/morning tiredness and fatigue are much more prevalent among school-aged girls than boys. Taken together the highest risk of these symptoms was found among 15-year-old pupils. As expected, school performance was associated slightly but significantly with insomnia-related symptoms and daytime tiredness even when gender, school grade, and the year of the study were accounted for. Lower performance was always associated with more prevalent insomnia-related symptoms or daytime/morning tiredness in both data. The results also indicated an increasingly widening gap in school performance between normally vigilant and chronically tired pupils. This research will contribute to research on schoolchildren’s well-being and give well-grounded new insights to promote adolescent’s well-being and school performance.

References

Dahl, R. E. The regulation of sleep and arousal: Development and psychopathology. Development Psychopathology, 1996, 8: 3. Dewald, J. F., Meijer, A. M., Oort, F. J., Kerkhof, G. A. and Bogels, S. M. The influence of sleep quality, sleep duration and sleepiness on school performance in children and adolescents: A meta-analytic review. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 2010, 14: 179. Fallone, G., Owens, J. A. and Deane, J. Sleepiness in children and adolescents: clinical implications. Sleep Med Rev, 2002, 6: 287. Punamäki R-L, Wallenius M. Nygård C-H, Saarni L, Rimpelä A. Use of information and communication technology (ICT) and perceived health in adolescence: The role of sleeping habits and waking-time tiredness. Journal of Adolescence 2007, 30: 569-585. Rimpelä M, Rimpelä A. Sleeping habits and disturbances. In: Rimpelä M, Rimpelä A, Ahlström S. (eds) Health habits among Finnish youth, vol 4. publications of the National Board of health. Helsinki. 1983 Suganuma N, Kikuchi T, Yanagi K, Yamamura S, Morishima H, Adachi H, Kumano-go T, Mikami A, Sugita Y, Takeda M. Using electronic media before sleep can curtail sleep time and result in self-perceived insufficient sleep. Sleep and Biological Rhythms 2007, 5: 204-214. Tynjälä J, Kannas L. Sleeping habits of Finnish school children by sociodemographic background. Health Promotion International, 1993, 8: 281-289. Tynjälä, J., Kannas, L., Levälahti, E. and Välimaa, R. Perceived sleep quality and its precursors in adolescents. Health Promotion International, 1999, 14: 155.

Author Information

Raili Välimaa (presenting / submitting)
University of Jyväskylä
Health Sciences
University of Jyväskylä
Jorma Tynjälä
University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Jari Villberg
University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Kristiina Ojala
University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Jukka Jokela
National Institute for Health and Welfare
Erkki Kronholm
National Institute for Health and Welfare

Update Modus of this Database

The current conference programme can be browsed in the conference management system (conftool) and, closer to the conference, in the conference app.
This database will be updated with the conference data after ECER. 

Search the ECER Programme

  • Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
  • Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
  • Search for authors and in the respective field.
  • For planning your conference attendance, please use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference and the conference agenda provided in conftool.
  • If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.