Effect of Sleep Quality on Academic Performance among University Students

Abstract

This study used data from a sample of 200 university students in India to assess how well their sleep quality was correlated with their performance academically as measured by CGPA scores. The research used both the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and the participants' own reports of their grades to determine this correlation. The results were that a large proportion of participants had poor sleep quality (approximately 73.5% of the participants and an average score on the PSQI of 6.13), and that there were no significant gender, year in school, or academic stream-related differences found for this variable. However, it was found that there was a strong negative correlation between the sleep quality of the participants and their CGPA scores (r = - .763; p < .01), and that poor sleep quality also significantly predicted lower CGPA scores when controlling for other variables in a regression analysis (beta = - .477; r-squared = .582) (i.e., good sleepers averaged 6.45 while poor sleepers averaged 4.65). These findings are consistent with those reported in previous studies conducted with samples of Indian students who were experiencing similar levels of academic stress (Ranjan et al., 2022; Joshi et al., 2018). These researchers advocate for implementing sleep education and hygiene programs at the universities, restructuring the way the academic day is structured, and implementing the National Education Policy of 2020 in order to improve academic outcomes for students.