Circadian preference and academic achievement in school-aged students: a systematic review and a longitudinal investigation of reciprocal relations

ABSTRACT

We provide a systematic review of findings on the relation between circadian preference and school achievement published after the last comprehensive review in 2015. We further test this relation in a longitudinal study. Our review of 26 studies revealed a positive relation between morningness and students’ school achievement, and a negative relation between eveningness and school achievement. In most studies, these relations were not affected by students’ age, sex, or intelligence, but were significantly mediated by students’ conscientiousness, motivation, and sleep behavior. Furthermore, circadian preference and school achievement showed no significant relation when school started in the afternoon. All studies were cross-sectional. Therefore, the direction of the relations between circadian preference, school achievement, and potential mediating variables like conscientiousness and motivation could not be investigated. In our longitudinal study, we tested the direction of the relations between circadian preference, academic achievement, conscientiousness, self-efficacy, and attitude toward school over time in a sample of 764 German high school students who were tested in the first (T1) and third (T2) year of high school. Findings from confirmatory cross-lagged models indicated reciprocal relations between circadian preference and school achievement: T1 morningness positively predicted change in grade point average over time while T1 grade point average positively predicted change in morningness and negatively predicted change in eveningness. Furthermore, T1 conscientiousness and T1 attitude toward school both positively predicted change in morningness, whereas T1 morningness and T1 eveningness did not significantly predict change in these variables.

KEYWORDS:

• Circadian preference
• achievement
• conscientiousness
• motivation
• longitudinal

Acknowledgements

Data from the longitudinal study stem from the AVG project conducted by Franzis Preckel. The AVG project focuses on motivational and self-concept development in secondary school students. This longitudinal study is supported by the Ministry of Education, Science, Adolescence, and Culture of Rhineland-Palatinate. The funding sources were not involved in decisions referring to study design, analysis, or interpretation of the data.

Declaration of interest statement

My co-author Franzis Preckel (University of Trier, Germany, [email protected]) and I (University of Trier, Germany, [email protected]) do not have any interests that might have influenced this research.

Notes

1. Four studies did not report the r coefficient because they used a typological approach instead of a continuous approach to investigate the relation between CP and school achievement. In these studies, individuals were typically divided into morning types, evening types, and neither type by their CP. We calculated standardized school achievement differences between morning and evening types for these studies (i.e., Cohen’s d = $\frac{\mathrm{m}\mathrm{o}\mathrm{r}\mathrm{n}\mathrm{i}\mathrm{n}\mathrm{g}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{y}\mathrm{p}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{s}M-\mathrm{e}\mathrm{v}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{n}\mathrm{i}\mathrm{n}\mathrm{g}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{y}\mathrm{p}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{s}M}{\mathrm{p}\mathrm{o}\mathrm{o}\mathrm{l}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{d}SD}$). Furthermore, we calculated Cohen’s ds for three additional studies that reported coefficients based on the continuous approach as well as coefficients based on the typological approach. Morning types were associated with better school achievement than evening types (median Cohen’s d = .34; number of studies k = 7; for exact Cohen’s ds, see Table 1).