Date of Award

2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Psychology (Ph.D.)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Mark D Terjesen

Second Advisor

Marlene Sotelo-Dynega

Third Advisor

Imad Zaheer

Abstract

Sleep is a vital human function, critical to health across the lifespan. However, college students report significant disturbances in sleep quality and sleep hygiene (ACHA, 2019; Moulin & Chung, 2016). The consequences of poor sleep include lower cognitive and executive functioning abilities (Honn et al., 2019; Whitney et al., 2015) and poorer academic performance (Okano et al., 2019). Given the prevalence of these issues and the deleterious consequences, several sleep hygiene interventions have been developed for college students. However, the effectiveness of sleep hygiene education is not fully supported (Dietrich et al., 2016), and the role of individual characteristics that impact treatment effectiveness (i.e., executive functioning ability) has not been studied. The present study will examine the role of executive functioning in sleep quality and sleep hygiene, which may highlight the need for executive functioning supports within sleep educational programs. Executive functioning allows individuals to engage in health-promoting behaviors (Hall & Marteau, 2014), though limited research is available on its contribution to sleep-specific health behaviors. Given that executive functioning deficits (Sheehan & Iarocci 2019) and sleep problems (Hayley et al., 2017) independently predict lower academic achievement, it is crucial to understand the relationship among these three factors to better understand how to support college students and promote academic success.

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