Chronotype, cognitive abilities, and academic achievement: A meta-analytic investigation

a r t i c l e i n f o Keywords: Chronotype Morningness–eveningness Meta-analysis Cognitive ability Academic achievement Grades Prediction Four meta-analyses examined relationships between morningness and cognitive ability (total N = 2177), eveningness and cognitive ability (total N = 1519), morningness and academic achievement (total N = 3220), and eveningness and academic achievement (total N = 700). The analyses focused on the population effect size (to reveal the effect across studies) and the homogeneity (to determine if the results of the several experiments are sufficiently similar to warrant their combination into an overall result). In all four cases, the aggregated correlations between chronotype and cognitive ability, as well as chronotype and academic achievement were found to be significant. Eveningness was found to be positively related to individuals' cognitive ability (r = .08), yet negatively related to indicators of academic achievement (r = −.14). Conversely, morningness had a negative relationship with cognitive ability (r = −.04) and a positive correlation with academic indicators (r = .16). Practical implications, including those pertaining to educational policy, are discussed. Circadian rhythms, or cyclic fluctuations in physiological and psychological functions, are thought to influence diverse aspects of an individual's life. Study, exercise, eating habits, and adaptability to shift work are just a few domains that are affected by these daily cycles, which generally approach 24 h. Widely acknowledged individual differences in circadian rhythms, commonly called morningness and eveningness, indicate preferences associated with morning or evening activities. A morning-type person is thus someone who gets up easily and is more alert in the morning than in the evening. By contrast, an evening-type person is more alert at night, often sleeping late into the morning. Traditionally, morningness and eveningness have been conceptualized as a trait, lying along a continuum (known as the morningness–eveningness dimension). Most individuals (i.e., around 70%) have a scale position somewhere between the extremes of morningness and eveningness and can be described as a neither (or in some accounts, a combined) type Researchers report age and gender differences in individuals' morningness and eveningness. In particular, the inclination towards morningness and eveningness appears to vary across the lifespan. Children are usually predisposed towards morningness. During adolescence a delay of phase preference can be observed reaching a maximum shift towards eveningness at around the age of 20 years. After the age of 50, studies document a pronounced shift back In regard to gender, results …