ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Mental Health and Wellbeing in Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1565920
The impact of sleep, mental health, and gender on academic performance in Canadian University students
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada
- 2McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
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Purpose: To understand the independent and combined effects of sleep and mental health on academic performance, while also exploring gender differences.A cross-sectional survey was distributed to undergraduate students at two Canadian universities in March 2022. Sleep quality and quantity was assessed using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Mental health variables include stress, depression, and anxiety. Academic performance was self-reported as students' cumulative percent average.Multiple linear regressions were used to investigate how 1) sleep, 2) mental health, 3) sleep and mental health together related to academic performance. These analyses were then repeated, stratified by gender.Results: A total of 1258 undergraduate students participated. While both mental health and sleep duration predicted academic performance among the whole sample, there were important gender differences. In gender-disaggregated data, sleep quality and quantity predicted academic performance in men but not mental health in the combined model. For women, stress, depression, and anxiety predicted of academic performance but not sleep quality. Sleep duration squared, but not sleep duration simply, was associated with academic performance in women.Sleep and mental health are essential for academic performance in undergraduate students. Further, gender may play a critical role. Universities should consider gender-specific supports to improve the well-being of their students.
Keywords: Sleep, gender, Mental Health, Depression, Anxiety, stress, academic perfomance
Received: 23 Jan 2025; Accepted: 16 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Kuhn, Heisz and Middleton. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Tara Kuhn, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada
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