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.