It is becoming recognized that individuals differ in their morningness– eveningness (M-E) preference, and that these preferences largely affect the wake up and retiring times, sleep disturbances, sleeplessness and sleep quality. However, few studies have examined objective measures of sleep or the effect of circadian chronotype on the academic performance of college students. In the current study, the relationships among Circadian Preferences, Sleep Quality, Academic Motivation and the Academic Success of college students were examined. Data was gathered from each subject by using a Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), five consecutive nights of the Sleep Cycle App (SCA), Academic Motivation Scale (AMS-C) and by examining the final grade achieved in a General Biology II course and cumulative Grade Point Average (GPA). The results of the MEQ indicated that the overwhelming majority of subjects reporting no preference (68%) while 27% reported a “Morning” preference and only 5% reported a “Evening” preference. Analysis found no significant difference between subjects based on their M-E Preference or AMS-C results for GPA or General Biology grade. Sleep duration and PSQI score were correlated (r = -0.45; p = 0.02) indicating that those that slept more hours/night tended to rate their sleep quality highly as were sleep duration, quality and efficiency. Students that slept between 2-6 hours/night had a significantly lower grade in a general biology course compared with students that slept >6 hours/night (75.57% vs 85.79%; p = 0.01) and a similar pattern was observed when examining hours of sleep and cumulative GPA (3.17 vs 3.50 GPA; p = 0.19). Taken as a whole these results indicate while our subjects did not have a strong M-E preference and that this preference did not seem to relate to academic performance, more and/or improved sleep was associated with better academic performance.
