Mismatching Chronotypes: A Survey Analysis

Introduction
The traditional school day limits the window for time of day learning because much of the school day centralizes in the morning and early afternoon. However, countless studies cite a human preference for optimal time of day (Bennett, Petros, Johnson, & Ferrarro, 2008; Hahn, Cowell, Wiprzycka, Goldstein, Ralph, Hasher, & Zelazo, 2012). Individuals all have a time of day where they work the best, whether they recognize it and are aware of it or not. This phenomenon is known as an individual’s chronotype, or time of day of highest productivity and executive function. An individual’s chronotype can be identified as morning-preferenced, afternoon-preferenced, or evening-preferenced through a survey analysis. The application of this

Goldstein et al., (2007) demonstrated an approximately six-point difference on the Full Intelligence Quotient scale in individual adolescents tested across different times of day. The individual taking the same conceptual test was determined to have either a six point higher or lower IQ depending on what time of day they took that test. This implies disadvantages to students taking courses, specifically challenging courses, outside of their optimal time of day. There is the potential for school scheduling and school time of day to change to accommodate afternoon- and evening-preferenced students as well as morning-preferenced students in order to diminish the productivity

First, high school student participants were randomly identified from the National Honor Society population of senior students at Westfield High School across both genders and in twelfth grade. This process of randomization was determined by a full roster of National Honor Society senior students enrolled at Westfield High School. Students were offered an hour of National Honor Society volunteer credit time as an incentive for participation in the study. This incentive played a small role in randomization in this process by initiating a volunteerism impact on the study. National Honor Society members are required to have at least a 3.5 grade point average and perform specific length volunteer projects. Therefore, this study does not deal with potential differences in intelligence quotient impacting test scores. This serves to control for any variation caused by different academic achievement levels between student subgroups. Volunteer participant consent was