Throughout the term, you will work on portions of a Research Proposal which will be submitted as a completed assignment in the last week of the course. The purpose of the Research Proposal is to provide learners with the opportunity to apply course learnings to design an original experiment and conduct a literature review. You will apply your understanding of statistical concepts to the research and compile a completed proposal, though you will not actually submit the proposal or conduct the experiment.
This week, you will complete your Research Proposal Introduction by combining your literature review with an overview of your topic and proposed study. You will begin your proposal introduction by identifying the specific problem area (what it is, why it is important) and the prevalence/scope of the problem. You should then lead into your literature review which you completed last week. Lastly, you should state the purpose of your study and research question(s), including hypotheses if applicable.
Your response should be 750 words or more (with the inclusion of last week’s literature review), and should be submitted in APA format.
This is my paper from last week, so we will need to use it to complete the assignment.
The
Influence of Sleep Quality on Next-Day Memory Recall in College Students
Research Question:
1. How
do variations in sleep quality (duration, interruptions, and sleep stage
proportions) affect memory recall accuracy and speed in college students during
academic tests?
Literature Review
In
their 2022 longitudinal research, Almarzouki and colleagues investigated the
influence of sleep quality and mental health on working memory and academic
success within a cohort of university students. The study took 83 students who
were asked to complete the CANTAB test to assess their sleep quality, mental
health (including depression and anxiety levels), and working memory over a
non-academic summer and academic term. Apart from that, I used a statistical
technique such as Pearson correlations and multiple regression analyses to
understand the correlations between these variables. The data showed that worse
mental health was associated with poor sleep quality, but work memory improved
during the term and was also linked to high GPA scores.
The study is commendable for its longitudinal approach, which makes
it possible to observe changes over time and use objective measures to assess
working memory. However, the reliance on a relatively small sample and the
focus merely on medical students may be limiting factors in the
generalizability of the results. Moreover, the self-reporting of sleep and
mental health may create response biases; hence, the reliability of the
findings will be affected. In conclusion, the study provides valuable information,
but the interpretations must be made considering the limitations.
The study by Xie et al. (2019) is focused on how poor everyday
sleep quality impacts visual working memory (WM) capacity and precision,
regardless of factors such as depressed mood and age. Using a short-term recall
exercise in two studies, they estimate the amount and accuracy of information
in working memory and the participants’ sleep quality and mood states. The
first study of college students reveals that both sleep quality and depressed
mood act independently to reduce working memory capacity but not to affect
working memory precision. The second study extends the findings to a more
general community sample with the same result: the quality of sleep and mood
are the factors that affect the width but not the precision of the working
memory capacity, which is instead regulated by age.
The study is remarkable for the robust methodology, which includes the
approach of a longitudinal study and the use of well-defined statistical
methods to separate the impact of sleep quality on mood and age. On the other
hand, it comes with some drawbacks. Self-reporting measures for sleep and mood
could be biased, and the focus on visual working memory does not apply to other
types of memory and cognitive functions. On the other hand, the study is
beneficial because it shows that factors such as sleep and mood can influence
cognitive performance.
In the study by Yu et al. (2022), they explored how sleep quality disturbances were associated
with cognitive performance on the following day in young individuals through a
long-term design that was highly detailed. The sample of 73 students ranging
from 4th grade to 12th grade was followed up over a semester for daily changes
in cognitive function and sleep quality. The data obtained indicated that sleep
quality greatly affected the daily variations of mental function. Even more
interesting is that those who had consistently poor sleep quality showed better
cognitive function after a good night’s sleep, while those who had good sleep
quality on average were affected negatively by perfect sleep.
The study’s strength is its longitudinal approach with a high degree of
daily granularity, which facilitates understanding the relationship between
sleep and cognitive function. However, it might be that self-reported sleep
quality may be biased, and the fact that the study is focused on students
limits the generalizability of the findings to other age groups. However, along
with these drawbacks, the study still offers the key to developing such
educational strategies based on sleep management to maximize daily cognitive
performance.
References
Almarzouki,
A. F., Mandili, R. L., Salloom, J., Kamal, L. K., Alharthi, O., Alharthi, S.,
… & Baglagel, A. M. (2022). The impact of sleep and mental health on
working memory and academic performance: a longitudinal study. Brain
sciences, 12(11), 1525.
Xie, W.,
Berry, A., Lustig, C., Deldin, P., & Zhang, W. (2019). Poor Sleep Quality
and Compromised Visual Working Memory Capacity. Journal of the
International Neuropsychological Society: JINS, 25(6), 583–594.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355617719000183
Yu, D.,
Goncalves, C., Yang, P. J., Geldhof, G. J., Michaelson, L., Ni, Y., &
Lerner, R. M. (2022). Does Prior Night’s Sleep Impact Next Day’s Executive
Functioning? It Depends on an Individual’s Average Sleep Quality. Journal
for person-oriented research, 8(1), 10–23.
https://doi.org/10.17505/jpor.2022.24218
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