Post-class naps boost declarative learning in a naturalistic school setting.
NPJ SCIENCE OF LEARNING 2018;
3:14. [PMID:
30631475 PMCID:
PMC6220199 DOI:
10.1038/s41539-018-0031-z]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/13/2018] [Revised: 07/18/2018] [Accepted: 07/19/2018] [Indexed: 05/05/2023]
Abstract
Laboratory evidence of a positive effect of sleep on declarative memory consolidation suggests that naps can be used to boost school learning in a scalable, low-cost manner. The few direct investigations of this hypothesis have so far upheld it, but departed from the naturalistic setting by testing non-curricular contents presented by experimenters instead of teachers. Furthermore, nap and non-nap groups were composed of different children. Here we assessed the effect of post-class naps on the retention of Science and History curricular contents presented by the regular class teacher to 24 students from 5th grade. Retention was repeatedly measured 3-4 days after content learning, with weekly group randomization over 6 consecutive weeks. Contents followed by long naps (>30 min), but not short naps (<30 min), were significantly more retained than contents followed by waking (Cohen's d = 0.7962). The results support the use of post-class morning naps to enhance formal education.
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