Neural Correlates of Self-regulation on Academic Functioning

Overview

The main objectives of the study include: 1. What are the differences in self-regulation and its neurophysiological and neuroanatomical correlates between college students with poor and excellent sleep functioning? 2. Does sleep functioning (assessed both by questionnaires and actigraphy), and self-control/self-regulation (questionnaire and imaging data) predict academic achievement and problem behaviors in college students?

Based on the Self-Control Theory, individual differences in characteristics such as impulsivity, risk-seeking, and self-regulation consistently predict health-compromising and problem behaviors as well as academic functioning and success in adolescents and young adults.\[1\] Although suboptimal self-regulation is normative in adolescence and young adulthood, \[2\] it might result in negative consequences for adolescents' and young adults' health and well-being, including substance use, school/college dropout, or troubles with law. A recent line of research suggested that self-regulation problems are associated with insufficient and poor sleep.\[3\] As adolescents and young adults frequently report poor sleep functioning,\[4\] their self-regulation abilities might be further compromised by unfavorable sleep functioning with consequences for youths' problem behaviors and academic success. To mitigate this problem, some efforts have followed to ensure that adolescents get enough quality sleep (e.g., delayed school start times). However, the associations between sleep functioning, self-regulation, academic functioning, and problem behaviors were established predominantly using questionnaire data. Neurophysiological correlates of these associations have not been extensively studied. In the proposed study, this gap in scholarship will be addressed by linking sleep functioning to self-regulation indicated by neuropsychological and neuroanatomical data, and predicting academic achievement and problem behaviors with sleep and self-regulation. This explorative, pilot study is a first step in efforts to understand the issue; it will be carried out with a college student sample (N = 48, 50% female) which will also have implications for future research focused on adolescents (middle and high school students). Pilot data will inform the development of a larger study that will include adolescents (middle and high school students) and will support grant applications. Results will have a potential for prevention /intervention programs and policy targeting youth, such as school start times setting. This study will be carried out as a collaboration between the Department of Family Sciences at the University of Kentucky and the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at the Texas Tech University. Data will be collected following the same procedures described in this application both at the University of Kentucky and Texas Tech campuses. Research team at the Texas Tech University has submitted their own Institutional Review Board (IRB) application that is now being reviewed.

Conditions

Interventions

Eligibility

Locations (1)

Outcomes