Investigating morningness-eveningness typology of medical students and its relationship with their academic merits and course difficulty

Introduction: Learning and performance of different people is influenced by an intrinsic clock and they can be classified into three groups: morningness, eveningness and non morningness-non eveningness. Cognitive performance of people is congruent with such rules and it approach maximum at different times of day. In higher education curriculum planning it is accepted to arrange difficult courses be presented early morning to seek better learning. This study is aimed at investigating the relationship of medical students’ academic merits with their morningness-eveningness schedule with regard to difficult and easy courses. Methods: this research is a retrograde descriptive –analytic study. Fifth semester medical students involved in this study. Their morningness-eveningness schedule was defined by the use of a 19 items questionnaire and they were asked to determine difficulty of different courses. The critical threshold for difficulty of each course was considered by 50%. Students’ manuscripts extracted from medical school educational officials. SPSS software (ver 11.5) was used for data analysis through “t”, ANOVA and multiple regression. Results: 63(67% female and 33% male) students participate in the study. Physiology, pathology and parasitology were considered as difficult courses and Islamic ethics, nutrition, analytical history of islam, practical parasitology and physiology considered as easy courses. 11%, 60% and 29% of students were considered morningness, nonmorningness-noneveningness and eveningness, respectively. As a result, eveningness females have a considerable decrease in difficult courses (Pvalue of physiology=0.009, pathology=0.005 and parasitology=0.059). Such decrease in males was not significant. Discussion: Although, it is believed that difficult courses should be presented in early morning for better learning this study shows that eveningness students’ performance may decline significantly and it is recommended to arrange for difficult courses to be presented in special times for better performance of all students categories