What Factors Can Affect your Sleep?

Taylor Bond, Mario Ramos, and Dennis Gagnon

Arizona State University

When reviewing the data from study we conducted, the range of hours of

sleep at night for students was somewhat surprising. The number of hours of sleep
per student ranged from one hour (surprisingly) to ten hours a night. According to

the Sleep Health Journal (2015), for young adults, 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night is

optimal. In the data that we collected, roughly 47% of our participants fell in the

range of 7 to 9 hours of sleep. Roughly 28% got 6 hours of sleep at night, and

roughly 4% got 10 hours of sleep at night. 11% of our respondents said that they

got 5 hours a sleep. To round off the data that we collected, 2% percent of the

participants said they got 4 hours of sleep, 1% percent said they got 3 hours of

sleep, and 1% said they got 2 hours of sleep.

Overall, considering that all of our participants in the data that we collected

are all college students, I would say that generally most participants got an

adequate number of sleep, with a few outliers. With many students holding down a

job while they are still in school, getting 7 to 9 hours of sleep on average may be

hard to do. With that being said, I think that averaging anything less than 6 hours a

sleep at night is unacceptable, no matter how busy one's schedule is. Averaging

less than 6 hours of sleep is not sustainable for living an optimal lifestyle.

Our group queried a series of participants on whether they placed their

phones in Air Plane Mode. Airplane mode is a setting on cell phones, smartphones

and other mobile devices that prevents the device from sending or receiving calls

and text messages. Usually used during flights but can also be used to eliminate

interruptions on a given basis. From the data gathered we had 8 participants that

said that they put their phones in Airplane Mode. As imagined the contests that

placed their phones in airplane mode acquired 13% more sleep than those who left

their phones on their normal setting. Personally I elected to power down my phone

for a night. I noticed that I received better quality of sleep. The anxiety and clingy
necessity to check my phone was totally gone because I knew that my phone was

off.

Our data shows that the participant that always got their sleep interrupted

received 6.5 hours of sleep. Which would be the predicted group that would receive

the least amount of sleep. The participants that frequently got their sleep

interrupted received 6.6 hours of sleep. Oddly enough the difference between

always and frequently was a difference of 1.5%. The participants that rarely got

their sleep interrupted received 6.7 hours of sleep. Shockingly the participants that

got their sleep interrupted sometimes received the highest amount of sleep with 7.1

hours of sleep. And the participants that never got their sleep interrupted receive

7.0 hours asleep. This would be the group that would predictively have the utmost

sleep. Our data contains many variants there for some of the numbers are

inconclusive. Logically we would imagine that the participants that never had their

sleep interrupted would receive the most sleep but our data shows other. But in the

case of the least amount of sleep (always interrupted) the perceived shows true

that they received the least amount of sleep although not by much they did have

the least amount. The numbers show that although some of the participants did get

their sleep interrupted they all still received above 6 hours of sleep which is the

recommended amount for an adult.

With any research project there could be possible sources of error and bias in

the data. These types of errors can cause the information and data collected to be

skewed and inaccurate. For example, our sample only included 125 respondents.

The data that was collected by these 125 participants could have sources of error

purely based off of the sample size. The bigger your sample is the more likely you

are to eliminate any outliers and bias in your results. For example, he one student
who gets 2 hours of sleep a night effects the average and median of our results of

125 people but wouldnt alter the results as much if the sample taken had included

a 1000 respondents. The survey was also only given out to students taking EDT180,

which tends to have a high amount of education majors in it. This could because he

results to be biased because it doesnt accurately display the overall population of

college students.

Surveys themselves arent the most accurate source of research. People get

the ability to choose whether or not they want to partake in the survey. People

usually only partake in them if they are going to gain something out of taking the

survey or if they feel very passionate about the topic. This can lead the results to be

skewed themselves because the results are only based off of who participated which

isnt always an accurate representation of the population youre talking about. The

wording of the questions can also affect how the respondents decided to answer.

The question Do you put your phone on airplane mode while you sleep? can lead

to varying responses. Respondents could have done something similar by turning

their phone off, putting it on do not disturb mode, or even silent and have gotten

similar results to putting their phone on airplane mode but selected no. Overall

the results that we received from the survey are as accurate as we could have

hoped given the resources we had available.

 References

National Sleep Foundations sleep time duration recommendations: methodology

and results summary Hirshkowitz, Max et al.

Sleep Health: Journal of the National Sleep Foundation, Volume 1, and Issue 1. 40

43

Rouse, Margaret. "What Is Airplane Mode? - Definition from WhatIs.com."

WhatIs.com. What Is, July 2012. Web. 19 Apr. 2017.