Psychology: Sleep Study

Discussion

Hypothesis

Initially, the proposed hypothesis for the current study was an increased quality of grades for students who go to sleep immediately after studying for two hours.

Previous Literature

The previous literature strongly supported that sleep quality improves academic performance; however, memory and retention were not seen intervening in academic performance. Still, other intervening factors consequently showed the performance on sleep and academic grades. The impact of culture on different ethnicities (international students and Whites), their working patterns, socializing, stress or anxiety, and age (particularly adolescent years) showed strong correlations between sleep and better academic achievements.

The current study proposed analyzing whether sleeping right after studying for at least two hours helped memorize the study concepts and learnings more aptly, whether memory was enhanced with such sleep, and whether these two indicators helped better academic performance. It is expected that studying immediately before sleeping would help improve e memory as sleep has positive effects on the brain.

There is scarce data available for verifying that memory could be affected by sleep quality immediately after studying. However, the data could not be ignored. A similar study indicated that three different memory processes could be influenced by sleep deprivation (SD): acquisition, consolidation, and retrieval (Heckman et al., 2020). SD posed a negative influence on at least one of them that caused memory problems for learning and retaining, and consequently performing better academically. The memory retrieval process was greatly affected before or after learning when SD came into play as the consolidation effect was weak in the memory.

Another study verified that sleep deprivation affected the information processing mechanism in alignment with working memory (Peng et al., 2020). Memory here includes both short-term as well as long-term memory. Memory causes a significant impact on responding to memory stimulus when something new was learned, or an individual wants to retain it back in his mind. Failure to respond to the required information was because of failed updating of newly learned information due to sleep deprivation.

It is expected from this study that it would research distance learning of online students and the impact on memory with the usage of technology as limited evidence has been found that stress has increased with this mode of educational delivery during Covid (Limone & Toto, 2021). Students are more dependent on online tools such as YouTube for watching educational videos and gaining entertainment through mobile applications, increased dependency on informal learning, higher levels of stress due to greater screen time, and even risk of higher addiction to virtual tools. It could cause sleep deprivation and, ultimately, negative impacts on memory. The daily fluctuations of the current study samples students would be observed that come with distance learning, resultantly revealing their academic achievement status.

Strengths and Limitations

The strength of this study would be that it is primary research conducted to test a specific hypothesis. The target population is selected for a specified purpose with a selected type of sampling method that would cater to the needs of the research. Also, the study incorporates the currently enrolled SNHU students of the online program who would be scrutinized for memory retention after sleeping immediately. Online learning and the impact of technology on memory will be investigated...…Since virtual learning has been extended to the early years of education and teenagers, they should also be of focus in future studies to see whether their use of technology, academic learning, sleep, and memory have been impacted positively or negatively.

Future clinical research could also be considered since psychologists could look into how sleep cycles and technology usage are interlinked, how memory stimulations work after sleep that help retain memory, and what strength is gained after learning the last night. The reduction in the number of young patients who have difficulties in performing to higher levels academically and recommending effective interventions for improving focus, attention, and better sleep cycles could be one of the reflections for clinicians.

Systematic research is required to note the daytime nap and night sleep of 6-8 hours to retain the memory of things learned before falling asleep. The noise and light disruptions during the day that might impact the quality of sleep against the peaceful seep pattern acquired during the night must also have some form of effect on memory. Therefore, the working memory would impact the academic achievement conducive to the results of such sleep routines among males and females exclusively.

Self-management techniques could be taught to students who want to improve their memory, so systematic research is required. Effective interventions, either with the support of school counselors or parents at home, could be valuable for helping the students who might want to get rid of the degenerative effects of sleep deprivation. Impaired working memories could be enhanced with such strategies to address academic challenges appropriately.