Impact of Sleep Loss on Creativity and STEM Learning for First-Year College Students

超过一半的大学生习惯性睡眠不足。众所周知，睡眠剥夺通常会对大脑功能产生强大的有害影响，但其对精神活动的具体影响程度尚不清楚。该项目由贝勒大学的研究人员领导，将汇集一个由睡眠科学家、教育工作者、认知神经科学家和统计学家组成的合作团队，以解决睡眠、创造力和STEM学习之间的理论和应用问题，特别是那些关于学生大量睡眠不足是否会阻碍培养创造力和STEM学习的问题。现有的理论框架认为，创造力并不是固定不变的，而是可以在数小时、数天、数周内动态波动的。研究这些创造力波动背后的大脑过程，以及睡眠模式、STEM课程的成功和保留，不仅可以从理论角度提供关键信息，还可以为未来教育干预措施的发展提供基础。因此，研究结果将在科学以及正式和非正式教育环境中广泛传播。该项目将与当地博物馆合作，每年举办快闪展览，将研究结果直接传播给学生、家长和老师。该项目由EHR核心研究（ECR）计划资助，该计划支持推进STEM学习基础研究文献和扩大STEM领域参与的工作。该项目将实证研究睡眠、创造力和学习成果之间的相互作用。一大批STEM专业的大学生将完成一系列评估创造力、流体智力、睡眠习惯和科学概念学习的测试。结构方程模型将评估睡眠习惯和创造力对科学概念学习的因果影响程度，独立于流体智力。这一较大样本的一部分将完成一个由多导睡眠描记仪监测的两阶段交叉实验，在这个实验中，他们将正常睡眠，并接受多夜睡眠限制（秩序平衡）。在每个阶段结束时，参与者将接受神经成像，同时进行创造力、注意力和编码测试。然后利用心理测量、多导睡眠图和神经成像数据来调查STEM成绩和记忆的纵向关系。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

More than half of all college students are habitually sleep deprived. Sleep deprivation is known to have powerful, detrimental effects generally on brain functioning, yet the extent of its specific effects on mental activity is unknown. This project, led by researchers at Baylor University, will bring together a collaborative team of sleep scientists, educators, cognitive neuroscientists, and statisticians to address theoretical and applied issues at the nexus of sleep, creativity, and STEM learning, especially those concerning whether such prolific sleep loss in students thwarts efforts to foster creativity and STEM learning. Existing theoretical frameworks posit that creative ability is not firmly set, but instead can fluctuate dynamically across hours, days, and weeks. Investigating the brain processes underlying these fluctuations in creativity, in relation to sleeping patterns and success and retention in STEM, will not only provide crucial information from a theoretical perspective, but can also provide a foundation for the development of future educational interventions. Therefore, the study findings will be disseminated broadly, in scientific as well as in formal and informal educational settings. The Project will include a collaboration with a local museum in hosting pop-up exhibits each year to disseminate the findings directly to students, parents, and teachers. The project is funded by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program, which supports work that advances the fundamental research literature on STEM learning and broadening participation in STEM fields. This project will empirically investigate the interplay of sleep, creativity, and learning outcomes. A large sample of college students in a STEM major will complete a battery of tests assessing creativity, fluid intelligence, sleep habits, and science-concept learning. Structural equation modeling will assess the degree to which sleep habits and creativity have a causal influence on science-concept learning, independent of fluid intelligence. A subset of this larger sample will complete a two-phase polysomnography-monitored, cross-over experiment in which they will sleep normally and undergo multi-night sleep restriction (order counterbalanced). At the end of each phase, participants will undergo neuroimaging while performing tests of creativity, attention, and encoding. The psychometric, polysomnographic, and neuroimaging data will then be utilized to investigate longitudinal relations with STEM achievement and retention.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.