BECE. Newsletter 

Vol.6, No.1, 2020 789 

 

 

 

 

How Long Should We Sleep? The Ideal Matching Pat-

tern between Sleep Time and Academic Achievement 

of High-school Students 

By Liu, J., Zhao, L.M., Du, X.F., Xu, G.X. 

Correspondence to: Liu, J. Email: ncctlj@126.com or Zhao, L. Email: 
545997501@qq.com 

DEQUATE sleep time, good psychosomatic development environment, 

and high-quality academic achievement are necessary conditions for 

educational success. Based on this, a study published in Journal of East Chi-

na Normal University (Educational Sciences), relying on the data of the 

Quality and Health Check-up Program of China Basic Education Quality 

Monitoring Coordination Center, explored the ideal matching model between 

students’ high academic achievement and sleep time on the basis of students 

psychosomatic development and a good educational environment, and 

providing multi-level early-warning to schools that sacrifice students’ sleep 

time in exchange for good scores. The results show that: 

 In general, high school students have the best academic perfor-

mance when they sleep more than nine hours. And those students 

enjoy a higher interest in learning, less stress, better learning 

quality, higher activity participation, more harmonious interper-

sonal relationships, and more happiness.  

 For schools with low socioeconomic status, students who get the 

best grades when they sleep between eight to nine hours have 

higher interest, less stress, better learning quality, more activity 

participation, harmonious interpersonal relationships, and more 

happiness. This shows that in the school environment with an 

overall lower socio-economic background, students need to pay a 

certain amount of time and effort to achieve good grades, and the 

best performance can only be achieved on the basis of at least 

eight hours of sleep, which guarantees a healthy educational envi-

ronment.  

 For schools with high socio-economic status groups, students who 

get the best grades when they sleep for more than eight hours 

have higher interest, lower stress, better learning quality, more ac-

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Vol.6, No.1, 2020 790 

tivity participation, more harmonious interpersonal relationships 

and more happiness. 

The study suggests that high achievement should not come at the ex-

pense of less sleep, regardless of the socio-economic status of the school. 

Keeping students’ sleep time at or above eight hours is an ideal matching 

mode for schools to ensure students’ physical and mental health development 

and to create a good educational environment. It’s suggested that the admin-

istrators, schools, teachers, and parents should hold positive values and un-

derstand the relationship between students’ sleep time and academic perfor-

mance. For schools that blindly pursue high grades at the expense of students’ 

sleep time, a multi-level early-warning mechanism should be established and 

their rectification should be supervised. 

 
Source: Journal of East China Normal University (Educational Sciences), 2020; 

38(3):71-79.