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Many students may be forced to make one of two undesirable choices when faced with early class start times: sleep longer instead of attending class or wake up e

Many students may be forced to make one of two undesirable choices when faced with early class start times: sleep longer instead of attending class or wake up earlier to attend class. There is a third option - go to bed earlier. Farmers have been doing it for millenia. Which raises an interesting question - are early classes at agricultural schools well-attended and do those students experience these same problems?

giantg2 4y ago
This study doesn't care about why. They seem to completely ignore evening activities except to remove study participants who are involved with shift work. I wonder what they would have found if they included those students. Perhaps the people best suited for early classes are also best suited for shift work. It would have been interesting to see.
- McSwag 4y ago
  Agreed, as I read I was thinking that “okay this is a clear case of correlation but not causation.” The root cause is late sleep schedule or even more simply, the lack of sleep. Granted, moving class times to a later time is one broad solution to a generalized problem.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    "moving class times to a later time is one broad solution to a generalized problem." Is it though? Without determining the cause by looking at the underlying factors, I don't think we can conclusively say it's a solution. It could be, but it might not be if this is based on something like "people who are late to registration are late to class", people who have fuller schedules require earlier classes to fit it in, or something. Hell, it might even be that the professors who teach in the afternoons are more relaxed in personality and grade more leniently.
asdff 4y ago
Farmers go to bed early because they rely on daylight to work. College students rarely have that liberty. Maybe they work part time, maybe they are studying, maybe socializing. You can cut out the socializing sure, but anecdotally I remember a lot of my peers in college grinding it out in the library until the PA system kicked them out multiple nights a week. Some of the classes students take just suck.
- the_only_law 4y ago
  I’d probably also fall asleep easier/earlier too if I did laborious physical work all day, as opposed to sitting around listening to people talk.

giantg2 4y ago

This study doesn't care about why. They seem to completely ignore evening activities except to remove study participants who are involved with shift work. I wonder what they would have found if they included those students. Perhaps the people best suited for early classes are also best suited for shift work. It would have been interesting to see.

McSwag 4y ago
Agreed, as I read I was thinking that “okay this is a clear case of correlation but not causation.” The root cause is late sleep schedule or even more simply, the lack of sleep. Granted, moving class times to a later time is one broad solution to a generalized problem.
- giantg2 4y ago
  "moving class times to a later time is one broad solution to a generalized problem." Is it though? Without determining the cause by looking at the underlying factors, I don't think we can conclusively say it's a solution. It could be, but it might not be if this is based on something like "people who are late to registration are late to class", people who have fuller schedules require earlier classes to fit it in, or something. Hell, it might even be that the professors who teach in the afternoons are more relaxed in personality and grade more leniently.

asdff 4y ago

Farmers go to bed early because they rely on daylight to work. College students rarely have that liberty. Maybe they work part time, maybe they are studying, maybe socializing. You can cut out the socializing sure, but anecdotally I remember a lot of my peers in college grinding it out in the library until the PA system kicked them out multiple nights a week. Some of the classes students take just suck.

the_only_law 4y ago
I’d probably also fall asleep easier/earlier too if I did laborious physical work all day, as opposed to sitting around listening to people talk.