Sleep Duration the Night before an Exam and Its Relationship to Students’ Exam Scores

Background: Sleep is an important criterion for preserving physical and mental health. The amount and quality of our nightly sleep could affect cognitive functions during the following day’s activities. Recent reviews suggest the important role of sleep in learning and sustaining memory. For the current study, we evaluated the relationship between nighttime sleep before an exam and performance on that exam in a group of students from the Azad University.

Methods: Data were collected from a convenience sample of 200 students who completed a questionnaire. Students’ records and exam scores were obtained by accessing student codes written on the exams. All data were analyzed using SPSS 16 software.

Results: Sixty-two percent of the students were male, and 38% were female. A slight majority (56.5%) of students were studying engineering, 16% were studying the basic sciences, and 27.5% were studying liberal arts. Mean sleep time the night before the exam was 6.43 hours. The mean exam score was 15.46. After dividing the sleep period into three groups, we observed that students who only slept at night received significantly higher exam score than who napped during the day. Students who slept 6-10 hours at some point within 24 hours before the exam obtained significantly higher exam scores than did students who slept less than 6 hours.

Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that adequate nighttime sleep the night before an exam relates to enhanced performance on that exam. Marital status, gender, and habitat did not have any association with exam scores.