Inadequate sleep hurting grades in public universities, study shows

Kenya: Low grades are stalking many public university students because of poor sleep patterns as they worry about family problems, empty wallets and love affairs gone sour.

A team of lecturers now say less sleeping time for stressed students in public universities is a major reason for poor grades, according to their scientific survey covering six institutions.

The study covered fourth year students of Meru, Chuka, Kenyatta, Jomo Kenyatta, Nairobi and Egerton universities.

"The main cause of insufficient sleep among university students was stress, which resulted from family problems, inadequate pocket money and broken relationships," said Raphael Mwiti Gikunda, the lead researcher and lecturer in the Department of Education at Chuka University.

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Other causes of inadequate sleep included social media, drug abuse, assignments and poor social relationships.

"We found that majority of the respondents, 56 per cent, slept for between five and six hours per night during week days," said Mr Gikunda.

However, many were found to sleep longer during the weekend to catch up with lost hours during the week but this, the lecturer said, actually disrupted their sleep cycles even more.

He explained experts recommend that young adults aim to achieve 7-9 hours of sleep every night, indicating that cutting just one hour of sleep drops mental alertness by one-third.

Due to inadequate sleep, 40 per cent of students reported missing lecturers, which was found to negatively affect their grades.

When the study published in the Merit Research Journal of Education and Review traced academic performance, researchers found those reporting fewer sleep hours were achieving lower grades than their counterparts who sleep longer hours.

"Our findings indicate that sleep quantity is positively correlated with performance and therefore, those who had Ds and Cs had less hours of sleep than the recommended duration," Gikunda told The Standard yesterday.

Their conclusion, which they said had been acknowledged in other studies across the world, was that sleep disorders affected students in our universities and posed a major risk of poor academic performance compared to those who got an adequate amount of sleep

Further investigations by the four lecturers, all from Chuka University, indicated the poor sleepers were highly stressed because of family problems, lack of pocket money and broken relationships in that order.

"While the students may have little capacity to solve family and financial problems, they should learn how to manage their stress especially when it comes to broken relationships and abuse of drugs and the internet," said the lecturer.

Such a strategy would help them establish and adopt a regular and healthy sleeping routine that does not compromise their academic performance.

"Domestic violence, drug abuse by parents and divorces are some of the things the society must address as a matter of urgency," said Gikunda.