Young people's time-of-day preferences affect their school performance

Abstract

During puberty, young people shift their time-of-day preferences from morningness to eveningness. One of the main problems seems to be early school-start times, which force adolescents to start working at a given time that may be too early for them; and this, in turn, negatively affects school functioning. Here, we ask whether morningness–eveningness influences school performance as measured in grades. A total of 811 school students aged 10–17 years responded to our pupil morningness–eveningness questionnaire (PMEQ) derived from the German translation of the original MEQ. PMEQ scores decreased with age and indicated a shift towards eveningness around the age of 12 years. Gender differences did not exist. School achievement decreased with age and differed between boys and girls. After accounting for age, we found a highly significant negative correlation between average grading in the major subjects and PMEQ score, indicating that pupils with morning preferences performed better in school achievement.

Keywords:

• age
• chronotype
• circadian rhythm
• gender
• grades
• morningness–eveningness
• school performance

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the pupils and their respective teachers. In particular, the cooperation of the principals of both schools, the Walter-Hohmann-Realschule and the Riemenschneider-Realschule, was highly appreciated. Randler was supported by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) and a grant from the University of Education, Ludwigsburg.

Notes

1. Please note that the German grading system is reverse coded; that is, 1 = best, 6 = worst (see Methods section).