title: Mister Sandman, bring me good marks! On the relationship between sleep quality and academic achievement.
abstract: There is growing evidence that health factors affect tertiary education success in a causal way. This study assesses the effect of sleep quality on academic achievement at university. To this end, we surveyed 804 students about their sleep quality by means of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) before the start of their first exam period in December 2013 at Ghent University. PSQI scores were merged with course marks in this exam period. Instrumenting PSQI scores by sleep quality during secondary education, we find that increasing total sleep quality with one standard deviation leads to 4.85 percentage point higher course marks. Based on this finding, we suggest that higher education providers might be incentivised to invest part of their resources for social facilities in professional support for students with sleep and other health problems.
authors.affiliation: Sherppa-Study Hive for Economic Research and Public Policy Analysis, Ghent University, Sint-Pietersplein 6, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium; Department of Sociology, University of Antwerp, Sint-Jacobsstraat 2, B-2000 Antwerp, Belgium; IZA-Institute for the Study of Labor, Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 5-9, D-53113 Bonn, Germany. Electronic address: http://users.UGent.be/%7esbaert.
authors.forename: Stijn
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Baert
authors.affiliation: Sherppa-Study Hive for Economic Research and Public Policy Analysis, Ghent University, Sint-Pietersplein 6, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Eddy
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Omey
authors.affiliation: Sherppa-Study Hive for Economic Research and Public Policy Analysis, Ghent University, Sint-Pietersplein 6, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium; HRRG-Human Relations Research Group, KU Leuven, Warmoesberg 26, B-1000 Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Dieter
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Verhaest
authors.affiliation: Sherppa-Study Hive for Economic Research and Public Policy Analysis, Ghent University, Sint-Pietersplein 6, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Aurélie
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vermeir
mesh_terms: D000124:Achievement; D000293:Adolescent; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012890:Sleep; D014495:Universities; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Academic achievement; Belgium; Economics of education; Economics of health; Economics of sleep; Sleep quality