Insufficient sleep, poor sleep quality and sleepiness are common problems in children
and adolescents being related to learning, memory and school performance. The associations
between sleep quality (k=16 studies, N=13,631), sleep duration (k=17 studies, N=15,199),
sleepiness (k=17, N=19,530) and school performance were examined in three separate
meta-analyses including influential factors (e.g., gender, age, parameter assessment)
as moderators. All three sleep variables were significantly but modestly related to
school performance. Sleepiness showed the strongest relation to school performance
(r=-0.133), followed by sleep quality (r=0.096) and sleep duration (r=0.069). Effect
sizes were larger for studies including younger participants which can be explained
by dramatic prefrontal cortex changes during (early) adolescence. Concerning the relationship
between sleep duration and school performance age effects were even larger in studies
that included more boys than in studies that included more girls, demonstrating the
importance of differential pubertal development of boys and girls. Longitudinal and
experimental studies are recommended in order to gain more insight into the different
relationships and to develop programs that can improve school performance by changing
individuals' sleep patterns.
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