Problem:
I need help with a literature review paper for my research methods class. Include the following information:
1. Use the following as a guide:
It should basically be structured like this:
First paragraph: Introduce your topic. Define any relevant terms. Cite the source for each definition Explain the scope of the paper and what it will cover. Explain that you will build off of the previous literature with a new study proposal. The following is previous work:1. Describe an area of research that you are interested in. Need Assignment Help?
I am interested in educational psychology, particularly how sleep affects students' academic performance. This area studies how physiological and behavioral factors influence learning outcomes and cognitive performance in educational settings.
2. What is your research question?
My research question is: How does the amount and quality of sleep impact academic performance among high school and college students?
3. Provide one clear prediction that you want to explore. Provide your best guess about what the answer to your question might be.
I predict that students who consistently get adequate sleep and report higher-quality sleep will have significantly better academic performance (higher GPA or test scores) compared with students who sleep less or have poor sleep quality. In other words, better sleep habits will correlate with improved academic outcomes.
4. Find a relevant journal article about your topic and include the APA reference for it below.
Here is one directly relevant original research article on this topic:
Hershner, S. D., Chervin, R. D., & Curcio, G. (2019). Sleep quality, sleep duration, and sleep consistency are associated with academic performance in college students. npj Science of Learning, 4, Article 19.
5. Summary
The study by Hershner, Chervin, and Curcio (2019) investigated the relationship between various sleep parameters specifically sleep quality, duration, and consistency and academic performance in college students. Using objective sleep measures collected over an entire semester and corresponding academic assessment data, the researchers analyzed how sleep habits related to grade outcomes. They found that longer and more consistent sleep duration and better overall sleep quality were significantly associated with higher academic performance, explaining a meaningful portion of variance in grades. The methodology involved tracking sleep over extended periods rather than only before tests, allowing for an ecological and longitudinal view of students' habitual sleep patterns and performance outcomes. This approach enabled the study to demonstrate that sustained good sleep habits throughout the learning period are more predictive of academic success than short-term changes in sleep behavior (only the night before an exam).
1. My research question is: How does the amount and quality of sleep impact academic performance among high school and college students?
2. Identify and describe your variables
To examine how sleep influences academic performance, the study focuses on one clearly measurable sleep factor and one academic outcome within the same academic term. The sleep factor is students' average nightly sleep duration during the first four weeks of the term, which represents their typical sleep behavior at the beginning of learning demands. The academic outcome is end of term GPA taken from official records. Narrowing the question in this way allows a direct test of whether early term sleep patterns predict later academic success in a realistic educational context.
2a. Dependent variable
The dependent variable is academic performance, measured as end of term GPA on the standard 0 to 4 scale. GPA is appropriate because it is a continuous numerical indicator of overall academic achievement across courses and reflects real educational outcomes rather than performance on a single test. Using official GPA also reduces bias that can occur when students self report their grades.
2b. Independent variable
The independent variable is sleep amount, defined as average nightly sleep duration during the first four weeks of the academic term. This variable captures how much students sleep during the early learning period and serves as the behavioral condition expected to influence later academic performance. Sleep duration can be objectively measured with wearable sleep trackers, which improves accuracy compared to recall based reports.
2c. Levels of the independent variable
Condition 1: Short sleep group, students averaging less than 6 hours of sleep per night during the first four weeks of the term.
Condition 2: Adequate sleep group, students averaging 6 hours or more of sleep per night during the first four weeks of the term.
These levels reflect meaningful differences in sleep duration that research has shown to relate to differences in GPA outcomes, particularly identifying less than six hours as a risk range for academic decline.
3. Testable hypothesis
Students who average 6 hours or more of sleep per night during the first four weeks of the term will have higher end of term GPA scores compared to students who average less than 6 hours of sleep per night during the first four weeks of the term.
4. Research design
The research design is a quasi experimental design. Students are not randomly assigned to sleep conditions, since sleep behavior occurs naturally and manipulating it would be impractical and potentially harmful. Instead, naturally occurring sleep groups are compared on academic outcomes. This design allows examination of predictive relationships between sleep and GPA while remaining ethical and feasible in educational settings.
5. Relevant journal article
Creswell, J. D., Tumminia, M. J., Price, S., Sefidgar, Y., Cohen, S., Ren, Y., Brown, J., Dey, A. K., Dutcher, J. M., Villalba, D., Mankoff, J., Xu, X., Creswell, K., Doryab, A., Mattingly, S., Striegel, A., Hachen, D., Martinez, G., & Lovett, M. C. (2023). Nightly sleep duration predicts grade point average in the first year of college. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 120(8), e2209123120.
6. Summary of the article
Creswell et al. (2023) examined whether nightly sleep period early in an academic term predicts later academic performance among first year college students. Across five samples from three universities, students' sleep was fairly measured for about one month early in the term using wearable sleep tracking devices. The primary sleep variable was average nightly sleep duration across this period. Academic performance was measured using official end of term GPA, and analyses statistically controlled for prior academic performance to account for baseline ability differences among students.
Results showed that greater early term sleep duration significantly predicted higher end of term GPA across samples. Each additional hour of sleep was associated with a modest increase in GPA, and students averaging less than six hours per night showed poorer academic outcomes and declines relative to their previous academic performance. Sleep duration emerged as a more consistent predictor than other sleep timing indicators such as variability in sleep schedule. The authors noted that because the study was observational, causal conclusions cannot be confirmed and unmeasured factors such as stress or workload may also influence both sleep and grades. Despite these limitations, the findings provide strong evidence that early term sleep duration is a meaningful forecaster of academic performance in college students.
Middle paragraphs: Explain the details of the four journal articles. Explain what was measured, how it was tested, and what the findings of the experiments were for each article. You should have at least four original research articles described in detail.
Last paragraph: Acknowledge some overlapping findings and themes in the four articles. Explain how you will build off of the existing literature (previous research) with your own study. End this paragraph with your testable hypothesis (the statement about how you expect your variables to interact).