 The deleterious effects of fatigue on final exam performanceDarrell J. Glaser and Michael A. Insler Economics of Education Review, 2022, vol. 90, issue C Abstract: We utilize an interrupted time series approach to identify the causal effects of a Sunday break on final exam performance. Five different class-year cohorts at the U.S. Naval Academy (USNA) comprise our panel dataset with over 19,000 exam grades from more than 5,000 students. Exam schedules vary exogenously across years, and first semester freshmen have no say in their course schedules nor can they reschedule their exams. We find consistent empirical evidence that a day-long break situated in the middle of a final exam period increases the average exam grade after the break. This occurs even after we control for idiosyncratic scheduling characteristics during the exam cycle, other timing-related variables, and both course and student-specific variables. In particular, the average final exam grade taken one day after a break is 20%–30% of a letter grade higher than exams taken one day prior to the break. We also estimate that each passing day of a final exam cycle decreases performance by approximately 10%–15% of a letter grade, and that morning exams exhibit a 20%–25% of a letter grade decline in performance, compared to the afternoon. Keywords: Grades; Scheduling; Academic performance; Human capital (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:90:y:2022:i:c:s0272775722000784 DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2022.102305 Access Statistics for this article Economics of Education Review is currently edited by E. Cohn More articles in Economics of Education Review from Elsevier |
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