Psychology and Sleep Study

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 sample’s 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 in this study as previous studies have formed a negative relationship between technology usage, sleep deprivation, increased stress, and lesser academic achievements. The gap in the previous literature that did not emphasize Covid-related hybrid learning, use of technology, impact on memory, and better academic achievements is expected to be fulfilled with the current study. Another strength could be a certain age limit selected for the males and females in the current study. If they fall in the adolescent age group, then the study would be of more significance for young adults and the impact of virtual learning on their memory and sleep after studying online. 

The limitation is primary research again, which is time-consuming. The results could be subjective as they might involve personal biases or judgments from the researcher. Also, since the sample is relatively small compared to what is required for the generalization of the entire research, it could be a pitfall. The students are only taken from online education, and the hybrid learning model, which was more prevalent during Covid, is not excluded. Limitations could also extend to the fact that the male and female ratio is not equal. There would be a risk of under-representation of one of the genders. 

Study Standards

Ethics of research have been kept in mind strictly, particularly for the study that involves human participants. Many studies have cited the revelation several times that ethics of research involve informed consent, confidentiality, a fair selection of the participants, and respect for the respondents (Bitter et al., 2020). The protection of participants is accountability that the researcher has to follow and has been carefully considered while carrying out the current study. The participants are to be respected, and their social and personal identities will be protected. 

Extra precautionary protocols are to be maintained while safeguarding the personal information of the study participants. It could be interpreted in this way once the participant is ensured that their data would be secured; only then might they be able to give their informed consent. A consent form indicates that the study would not be an enforced one, and participants are fully allowed to either choose to engage or withdraw from participation. 

Justice would be ensured with equal distribution of costs and benefits of the study to the online students, for both males and females. Firstly, this would require an equal selection of males and females for the sample to prevent the under-representation issue of either gender. Secondly, the interpretation of the results and their impacts would be easily identified with both genders, complying with the norms of fairness (Bitter et al., 2020). 

Future Research 

The future implications of the current study would be for counselors of SNHU institute so that students having problems sleeping and retaining their memory for newly learning educational concepts should not hinder their pathway to gaining good grades. The university administration would be in the position to contemplate the findings on whether sleep plays an integral part in keeping afresh the memory of things learned before closing one’s eyes. How students should be encouraged to gain good hours’ sleep and stay away from exam stress, which usually causes staying up and studying for prolonged hours, should be voided. Sleeping for a few hours and staying for increased hours caused higher levels of stress, which should be taken into consideration by SNHU staff and management.  

Future research could also involve studying the difference in memory retention between males and females separately. One of the previous literature stated that women showed a higher risk of poor sleep quality, which is expected to cause influence this study’s findings. For this reason, genders would be highlighted in future studies to corroborate the impact of sleep, memory, and academic performance distinctly on males and females. 

Age could also be one of the significant factors that could be further explored in future investigations as adolescents, or young adults have been studied in various studies, even the current one, which only focuses on university students. 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.