D: Yaël, I don’t understand why it’s so hard for students to do well in college. It’s just a matter of studying hard.
Y: It’s a bit more complicated than that, Don. In 2018 two American researchers published evidence that individual differences in daily biological rhythms influence academic performance.
D: How would scientists study something like that?
Y: First the researchers studied the daily activity patterns of fifteen thousand students by measuring the times at which they logged in to the university’s learning management system. They classified the students’ daily activity patterns into three groups: morning larks, daytime finches, and night owls.
D: I see. This strategy of using computer logins allowed the researchers to study a really large number of students. And once the students have been classified according to daily activity cycle, the researchers could study how well the students in each group did in classes held at different times during the day.
Y: That’s it exactly. The researchers found that when there was a significant mismatch between a student’s daily activity pattern and their class schedule, their academic performance was significantly impacted. The effect was worst for night owls—students who were most active and alert late in the day. The phenomenon is called social jet lag, because it is similar to the disorienting effect of flying across numerous time zones.
D: Can anything be done to prevent this social jet lag?
Y: There is no one schedule that works best for everybody. But, the research showed that when individual students are able to schedule classes in accord with their daily activity cycles, they perform better in those classes.
