Compare the educational achievement of medical students with different circadian rhythms in difficult courses of basic sciences

Liaghatdar, Mohammad Javad; Ashoorion, Vahid; Avizhgan, Maryam

Compare the educational achievement of medical students with different circadian rhythms in difficult courses of basic sciences

Authors

¹ Education and Psychology School, University of Isfahan, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

² Medical Education Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

³ Education and Psychology School, University of Isfahan, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan; Medical Education Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan; School of Medicine, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

Abstract

Background: Advantageous times for different people are different to some extent, considering the effective physiological changes during the circadian rhythm, in terms of the peak time of physiological activities. The goal of this study is to compare the educational achievement of students, with different morning–evening habits, in completing difficult and easy courses.
Materials and Methods: This research is a retrospective descriptive–analytical study, which has been conducted on students of the fifth semester of General Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. The morning–evening habits of the students were determined by the Horne-Strauss 19-item questionnaire. The students were asked to determine the courses that were 'difficult' and 'easy,' using a researcher-made questionnaire. The students' scores in the considered courses during the five semesters were obtained from the Education Department of the Faculty and analyzed using the descriptive t-test, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and the multivariate regression test in the SPSS software.

Results: Sixty-three students (67% girls and 33% boys) participated in this study, of whom 11, 60, and 29% were morning, morning–evening, and evening students, respectively. The mean scores of the difficult courses in all five semesters were reduced in the evening pattern compared to the morning and morning–evening patterns. Reduction of the mean score in the difficult courses, in the evening group, compared with the morning–evening and morning groups was observed in all five semesters among girls, but in three semesters among boys.
Conclusion: This study showed that evening students experienced academic failure in difficult courses, which required a more cognitive performance. It is recommended that difficult specialized courses be presented at hours when all student groups have a better cognitive performance

Keywords

References

1.	Lanier JL. Terms of Circadian Rhythm. Available from: http://www.colostate.edu/depts/Entomology/courses/en507/papers1999/lanier.html. [Last accessed on 1999-2005 Apr 22].
2.	Wilma EK. The Molecular Genetics of Circadian Clocks. Available from: http://www.scirus.com. [Last accessed on 1999-2005 Jun 25].
3.	Milia LD, Smith PA, Folkard S. A validation of the revised circadian type inventory in a working sample. Pers Individ Dif 2005;39:1293-305.
4.	Cavallera GM, Giudici S. Morningness and eveningness personality: A survey in literature from 1995 up till 2006. Pers Individ Dif 2008;44:3-21.
5.	Khodapanahi MK.[physiological Psychology]. Tehran: Samt; 2002.
6.	Van Dongen HP, Dinges DF. Circadian rhythms in fatigue, alertness, and performance. Princ Pract Sleep Med 2000;20:391-9.
7.	Natale V, Cicogna P. Morningness and eveningness dimension: Is it really a continuum? Pers Individ Dif 2002;32:809-16.
8.	Song J, Stough C. The relationship between morningness-eveningness, time of day, speed of information processing, and intelligence. Pers Individ Dif 2000;29:1179-90.
9.	Fabbri M, Antonietti A, Giorgetti M, Tonetti L, Natale V. Circadian typology and style of thinking differences. Learn Individ Differ 2007;17:175-80.
10.	Avivi A, Oster H, Joel A, Beiles A, Albrecht U, Nevo E. Circadian genes in a blind subterranean mammal II: Conservation and uniqueness of the three Period homologs in the blind subterranean mole rat, Spalax ehrenbergi superspecies. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2002;99:11718-23.
11.	Avivi A, Oster H, Joel A, Beiles A, Albrecht U, Nevo E. Circadian genes in a blind subterranean mammal III: Molecular cloning and circadian regulation of cryptochrome genes in the blind subterranean mole rat, spalax ehrenbergi superspecies. J Biol Rhythms 2004;19:22-34.
12.	Avivi A, Albrecht U, Oster H, Joel A, Beiles A, Nevo E. Biological clock in total darkness: The Clock/MOP3 circadian system of the blind subterranean mole rat. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2001;98:13751-6.
13.	Dvornyk V, Vinogradova O, Nevo E. Origin and evolution of circadian clock genes in prokaryotes. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2003;100:2495-500.
14.	Dunlap JC. Molecular bases for circadian clocks. Cell 1999;96:271-90.
15.	Hayes KR, Baggs JE, Hogenesch JB. Circadian clocks are seeing the systems biology light. Genome Biol 2005;6:219.
16.	Caci H, Robert P, Dossios C, Boyer P. Morningness-eveningness for children scale: Psychometric properties and month of birth effect. Encephale 2005;31:56-64.
17.	Randler C, Daniela F. Correlation between morningness-eveningness and final school leaving exams. Biol Rhythm Res 2006;37:233-9.
18.	Randler C, Díaz Morales JF. Morningness in German and Spanish students: A comparative study. Eur J Pers 2007;21:419-27.
19.	Roberts RD, Kyllonen PC. Morningness-eveningness and intelligence: Early to bed, early to rise will likely make you anything but wise! Pers Individ Dif 1999;27:1123-33.
20.	Tankova I, Adan A, Buela-Casal G. Circadian typology and individual differences. A review. Pers Individ Dif 1994;16:671-84.
21.	Bailey SL, Heitkemper MM. Circadian rhythmicity of cortisol and body temperature: Morningness-eveningness effects. Chronobiol Int 2001;18:249-61.
22.	Natale V, Lorenzetti R. Influences of morningness-eveningness and time of day on narrative comprehension. Pers Individ Dif 1997;23:685-90.
23.	Natale V, Antonella A, PierCarla P. Cognitive efficiency and circadian typologies: A diurnal study. Pers Individ Dif 2003;35:1089-105.
24.	Horne JA, Ostberg O. A self-assessment questionnaire to determine morningness-eveningness in human circadian rhythms. Int J Chronobiol 1976;4:97-110. [PUBMED]
25.	Folkard S, Monk TH, Lobban MC. Towards a predictive test of adjustment to shift work. Ergonomics 1979;22:79-91. [PUBMED]
26.	Smith PA, Brown DF, Di Milia L, Wragg C. The use of the circadian type inventory as a measure of the circadian constructs of vigour and rigidity. Ergonomics 1993;36:169-75.
27.	Lee DM, Peter SA, Simon F. Refining the psychometric properties of the circadian type inventory. Pers Individ Dif 2004;36:1953-64.
28.	Brown FM. Psychometric equivalence of an improved basic language morningness (BALM) scale using industrial population within comparisons. Ergonomics 1993;36:191-7.
29.	Carskadon MA, Vieira C, Acebo C. Association between puberty and delayed phase preference. Sleep 1993;16:258-62.
30.	Košćec A, Radošević-Vidaček B, Kostović M. Morningness-eveningness across two student generations: Would two decades make a difference? Pers Individ Dif 2001;31:627-38.
31.	Chelminski I, Ferraro FR, Petros T, Plaud JJ. Horne and Ostberg questionnaire: A score distribution in a large sample of young adults. Pers Individ Dif 1997;23:647-52.
32.	Blake MJ. Time of Day Effects on Performance in a Range of Tasks. Royal Naval Personnel Research Committee London (England): Generic; 1969.
33.	McElroy T, Mosteller L. The influence of circadian type, time of day and class difficulty on students' grades. Electronic J Res Educ Psychol 2006;4:611-22.
34.	Anderson MJ, Petros TV, Beckwith BE, Mitchell WW, Fritz S. Individual differences in the effect of time of day on long-term memory access. Am J Psychol 1991;104:241-55.
35.	Monk TH, Leng VC. Interactions between inter-individual and inter-task differences in the diurnal variation of human performance. Chronobiol Int 1986;3:171-7.
36.	Blatter K, Cajochen C. Circadian rhythms in cognitive performance: Methodological constraints, protocols, theoretical underpinnings. Physiol Behav 2007;90:196-208.
37.	Park YM, Matsumoto K, Seo YJ, Shinkoda H, Park KP. Scores on morningness-eveningness and sleep habits of Korean students, Japanese students, and Japanese workers. Percept Mot Skills 1997;85:143-54.

Advanced Biomedical Research