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The Transform your Teaching podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. Join Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles as they seek to inspire higher education faculty to adopt innovative teaching and learning practices.
Hello, transform your teaching listeners. This is Jared, and I wanna say thank you to all of you who filled out our 2025 end of year survey. Your input and feedback is crucial to help us improve the podcast, and we're just thankful to hear from you. We have one more winner of the Uncommon Sense Teaching book. This goes out to Jen Wallinga, who is in Iowa.
Jared:Thank you so much for contributing to the survey, and we will be sending you your book in the mail very shortly.
Chao Liu:As a professor, as a brother in Christ, just be with them, talk with them, check on their sleep and check on other issues in their going on in their life, and pray with them as well.
Jared:This is the Transform Your Teaching Podcast. The Transform Your Teaching Podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio.
Ryan:Hello, and welcome to this episode of Transform Your Teaching. In today's episode, Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles chat with Doctor. Chao Liu, associate professor of psychology at Cedarville University
Ryan:They discuss one of the external factors that can play a role in student sleep. Thanks for joining us.
Rob:So Jared, today, we are doing more on external factors and motivation. And we decided we were gonna go a little bit of a different path than normal. Yeah. And we're gonna focus on sleep factors. And it just so happens that we have someone who's been doing some studies on those things here at Cedarville.
Rob:Yeah. I'm gonna let you introduce him.
Jared:Sure. This is doctor Chao Lu, the associate professor of psychology, a good friend of CTL. Mhmm. Thanks for coming on, the show and talking with us about external factors because we've been focusing on motivation and the impact that it has on students in our classrooms. So external intrinsic, and what it all matters and how we as instructors can influence student motivation.
Chao Liu:Well, thank you so much for having me here. I've been here in this building quite often. I just I didn't go to your offices quite often. So next time, I'll make sure. Right?
Chao Liu:Yeah. I'll bring this to office. Yes.
Jared:I should leave my door open. On. I think that's what it is.
Chao Liu:Yeah. But thank you for having me here.
Rob:Sleep popped up to both of us because we're both teaching classes. And one of the things I do in in the beginning of my classes, I actually ask them, do you feel awake and ready to learn? I have a Mentimeter ranking that they rank themselves. And it's really interesting to see that, you know, you can see how they rank themselves, but then you can just view them physically And you can tell when they've been burning the midnight oil. Right?
Rob:And you know that they're in class, but they may not necessarily be in class, if you know what I mean. So that just made Jared and I start talking. We've had several conversations about this. He also knows that I go to bed anywhere between 08:30 and nine, wake up at 04:30. That's just my habit.
Rob:I like to work in the mornings. And we've also talked about in the coffee drop many, many moons ago
Jared:Mhmm.
Rob:That we shouldn't drink caffeine or anything with caffeine after 2PM.
Jared:Yeah. That was that that's a throwback.
Rob:Yeah. And that was one of our bigger
Jared:It was.
Rob:Like, little episodes that people actually listen to.
Jared:Right. I feel what the actual content of the coffee drop was. It was basically That stuck in my head.
Rob:Don't drink coffee after 2PM.
Jared:Yeah. But that's my habit now.
Chao Liu:So That's good advice. Yeah.
Rob:Yeah. So we thought we'd bring you in, see what you have to say. Maybe you're just gonna blow us out of the water with things that we thought were true or maybe our listeners think are true but aren't. So can you kinda help us peel back the curtain on what kind of importance does sleep play, especially for college students and maybe even for instructors as well? And are there any, like, big myths that you think that drive you up a wall?
Jared:Yeah. Tell us about your research
Rob:Yeah.
Jared:What you found about sleep.
Chao Liu:So, yeah, I did some research on sleep. So we look at how sleep affects academic performance and also physical and mental health. So I wanna circle back to what you said a moment ago. So professors do know a lot. So students so pay attention to class.
Chao Liu:If you come come to class, so professors can tell whether you're sleepy, you're scrolling on your phone, or doing some other things. K? So professors do not know a lot. K? Now in terms of sleep, professor can tell.
Chao Liu:Now sometimes we as professor need to pay attention to their classroom behavior.
Rob:Mhmm.
Chao Liu:Okay. And also some academic performance. So especially, for example, if they have some unstable performance, maybe one day they did pretty well on the quiz. Another day, they did pretty poorly on the quiz. Maybe that's a sign of lack of sleep and maybe something going on in their physical side.
Chao Liu:K?
Rob:Okay.
Chao Liu:So maybe just some some checking to ask them, how's going? How's life been going with you? How was your sleep last night? So just check on them. Yeah.
Chao Liu:You know? Yeah. Something other than just academic Mhmm. The performance.
Jared:Sure.
Chao Liu:So check on their life to make sure their physical well-being and psychological well-being on track as well. Yeah.
Jared:So what have you seen as an impact as far as not getting enough sleep? How is it going to affect the student inside the classroom? Like,
Chao Liu:what's Yeah.
Jared:Like, what are the the signs that maybe getting more sleep would be useful?
Chao Liu:Yeah. So initially, if student lack of sleep, they may just feel tired. You can tell they're they're feeling tired. Sure. They're exhausted.
Chao Liu:But over time, that can undercut their motivation. So that can undermine their motivation. So because their contact ability is really compromised, so their motivation being on the cut as well. So they they it's not they don't want to try. It's not they they they stop valuing their education.
Chao Liu:It's that they lack of motivation. And they try, they try, but they still fail. That's because their cognitive ability being compromised due to lack of sleep. So the motivation is the big factor. So over time so student will feel lack of motivation and feel the the effort.
Chao Liu:They tried. Uh-huh. But the cost of effort is so high, the payoff is just so small. Yeah. So they give up.
Chao Liu:Yeah. So that's the big
Jared:Cost of effort is so high.
Rob:But payoff is so small. Payoff is so small. So basically, they're spinning their wheels.
Chao Liu:Yeah. They keep trying, but there's no payoff. Yeah. So just because they're they're feeling tired all the time. Yeah.
Rob:How would you put that in a into a way that our listeners would understand, like, in terms of comparisons? Let's say, for argument's sake, that eight hours is the de facto gold standard for the amount of sleep you should get every night. First of all, is that true?
Chao Liu:That's typically true. Yeah. Okay. For adults, yeah. That should be eight hours sleep.
Rob:So is the the degree to which our cognitive abilities are compromised, is it linear or is it exponential in terms of the amount of time that you lose? So, like, if I only get seven hours of sleep a night, what kind of effect am I gonna see in my cognitive abilities?
Chao Liu:It really hard to say because it depends on individual physical condition. Okay. From our study, we collect data from 91 undergrad students at Cedar Hall. So I analyzed the data. So I used cluster analysis to analyze data.
Chao Liu:So we found there are three groups of students in terms of their sleep. So the sleep length, the duration of sleep, that's one factor. So one group, I call that group insufficient sleep group because that group only had five point nine hours of sleep. That's way short. But the other two groups, if you look at duration of the sleep, they are fairly comparable.
Chao Liu:So one group has eight point seven hours. Okay? And one group has eight point three hours. So they're pretty good in terms of the hours of sleep, but the quality is not the same. Right?
Chao Liu:So one group I called one group as the tired group because they wake up more often. If you look at the wake up time Uh-huh. They wake up way more often than the other group, the healthy group.
Rob:During their sleep?
Chao Liu:During their sleep. Okay. Yeah. So we track of their sleep wake up time as well. So the quality should be another factor to consider.
Chao Liu:It's not about the length of your sleep, but the quality. Do you wake up more often? Sometimes we can simply ask them, how do you feel the next day, next morning? Yeah. So you can put it in, like, ten hours of sleep, but you feel tired the next morning.
Chao Liu:Yeah. That's not gonna do you any good for the long time. Yeah.
Rob:So if it sounds like you're saying if you wake up tired, feeling tired, and not rested, you're already compromised.
Chao Liu:Right. Yeah. Is that yeah. So what kind
Rob:of compromise are we talking?
Chao Liu:So feeling tired. K. If you're feeling tired, so lower ability to focus, stay focused on the course material. And then, again, over time, so your motivation being on the cut, so you feel less motivated and you gave up trying. Yeah.
Chao Liu:So that's the psychological part. Yeah. It's not just the physical. Physically, meaning initially, if you can feel tired over time, the psychological effect can really kick in. Yeah.
Jared:So psychologically, is that your brain telling you, we need to prioritize energy, sleep versus cognitive academic stuff? Is that where the why the motivation's undercut? Is it because the body's your brain's like, no, we don't need this. We need you to sleep more. Get off your phone kind of a thing.
Jared:Is that what's going on there?
Chao Liu:Yeah. Your brain is sending the signal that you need more sleep, quality sleep. That's one thing. But that's the the human responsibility part. Also, our course schedule is not a factor to consider.
Chao Liu:So we have a lot of early classes, and student have to get up early to catch those early classes. So and they have some free time at night. So that's when they scroll put a lot of time on the screen on social media, stay connected with their friends. So time management, that's connected with their schedule as well. Were you tracking their screen usage as well in your study?
Chao Liu:In this new project, our new line of data collection, we did we do. Yeah. So but Okay. The we we have two parts in our project. The first one was to look at sleep.
Chao Liu:Okay. And this second part, are looking at also their screen time as well.
Rob:So you're in the midst of that right now?
Chao Liu:Yeah. Okay. So I submit a proposal and and, yeah, to do that line
Rob:of study. I'm looking forward to hearing what what you find out.
Chao Liu:Yeah. I'm excited about that project as well. Yeah. So screen time is a big thing nowadays, especially in our day digital age. Yeah.
Chao Liu:They feel the pressure from their peers to stay connected during the night. Yeah. So they always wonder, have I replied this email? Have I have I replied, stay connected with this friend on Facebook, something like that. So, yeah, they just keep scrolling on their screen and then stay up late at night.
Chao Liu:Yeah.
Jared:So if I can go null hypothesis wise here, are you trying to disprove then that screen time has a impact on their sleep and then their energy and motivation? Is that what
Chao Liu:you're Definitely. Yeah. I can speak from my experience. Yeah. So if I did a lot of screen time, scroll down the my my phone, I will have hard time sleeping at night.
Chao Liu:Yeah. So Okay.
Jared:Yeah. Alright.
Rob:Yeah. I I don't know if I've seen the effects on myself. One, I my phone is set that when it gets to a certain time, like when the sun goes down, it shifts the color hue on my screen to yellow.
Chao Liu:Yeah.
Rob:And then anything that I interact with is gonna be that. I've been trying not to do email before I go to bed. Yeah. Saying no to that urge to check because there are those of our colleagues that will send emails some
Jared:like mother grading or planning.
Rob:Yeah. 09:10 o'clock at night. Mhmm. And you're like Yeah. And then if you see it, then you're just like, oh, wait a
Chao Liu:minute. Yeah.
Rob:Do I wanna do I wanna just leave that in the back of my mind or do I go ahead and look at it before I go to sleep or am I gonna just sit there and think about it the entire night and have some weird crazy dream?
Chao Liu:That's my problem. So I I always worry, oh, have I replied this email? So if I don't reply, student will worry. So that's my problem. So I typically reply email during nighttime and pretty late at night.
Chao Liu:So I should cut that off from my end.
Jared:It makes me wonder if there needs to be a study on faculty sleep and whether how it affects their teaching.
Rob:Well, I I would say it has to.
Jared:Yeah.
Rob:It has to.
Jared:We talk about student lack of sleep, then you have faculty grading at 10:30, eleven at night.
Rob:Well, you put the two of them together. Well, we already know.
Jared:Have a bunch of room of tired people.
Rob:We already know that if you, like, grade for two hours, three hours, there's a degradation and a Drift. And a drift Mhmm. In your grading, like, accuracy drops off. Not to mention bias if you see a particular student's name or something like, oh, yeah. They were they were groggy this morning.
Rob:Terrible student. You know? Yeah. You might be harsher with them than you should be, but that's a that's a whole another but you're not wrong. Like, you're studying students, but I wonder, should we study ourselves
Chao Liu:Yeah. Of course.
Rob:And think about those kinds of things because it seems like this is such a small thing. We don't really think about it. It's just something we do as humans. We get tired, we go to sleep.
Chao Liu:Yeah. Yeah. We should definitely do a study on professors as well, faculty member professors. Yeah. Yeah.
Chao Liu:Yeah. So for me, as a parent, I don't have much free time. So nighttime is the only time I can work on my class classes and grading and emails. Yeah. So but it could be different from different professors.
Chao Liu:But, yeah, for a professor, the quality of sleep is important as well.
Jared:Yeah.
Rob:How is this affecting our students' abilities in terms of you said cognitive abilities, but I'm wondering, does it also affect their cognitive development? Not just their ability to process something, but the ability to actually encode new knowledge into the brain, as well as associate that knowledge with with and synthesize with other ideas. Is there while the brain's still developing, right, because
Chao Liu:Yeah.
Rob:Most most of our students, if they're under the age of 25, their brain is still developing. Is that correct?
Chao Liu:Yeah. Yeah. Their frontal lobes still developing. They cannot think for most young people, they cannot think long term. Yeah.
Chao Liu:What about the long long term consequences of lack of sleep? K? They feel rewarded if they reply email, if they stay connect connected with friends on Facebook. Yeah. So you have the adrenaline shot or energy boost when you stay connected on Facebook, but temporarily.
Chao Liu:But over time, your cognitive ability can be compromised because you're feeling tired. Once again, you're feeling tired, and then that can undercut your motivation.
Rob:Yeah. So how much though? I think that's the thing I'm still trying to figure out, like, are we talking does it cut your cognitive ability in half of what your what your potential is? You know, how much are you leaving on the table? Yeah.
Rob:That is that something that maybe
Chao Liu:a hard study is looking at? Yeah. It's hard to quantify because it really varies from individual to individual. Yeah. Mhmm.
Chao Liu:Also, a lot of other factors can play as well. So your diet and your physical exercise Mhmm. Those factors are important as well. K? Those can affect your sleep in a positive way or in an active way.
Chao Liu:And so if you have bad bad diet or you don't do exercise quite often, that that can put a risk on your sleep as well. Yeah. Also, what level of
Jared:stress your environment you're coming from? I know you've done studies on high stress environments and stuff like that, and I'm sure that has a big factor in cognitive ability as well. Yeah. Motivation and stuff like that.
Chao Liu:Yeah. The family environment, any conflict from your family, maybe your the noise from your neighborhood, safety concern, those environmental factors can play a role as well.
Jared:I do wanna talk practically, but I do have a question, though. This is something that one of my professors here at Cedarville, when I was struggling with sleep, she was like, well, if you find, maybe you've heard of this too, if you find that everyone sleeps in certain like cycles, a three hour or a four hour cycle, she said, if you can wake yourself up after that three hour, you find out whatever yours is, three hour or four hour. If you can wake yourself up at that time, that's the your body telling you you have enough energy to work the rest of the day. And you then you can double that like six hours or eight hours. If you can wake up within that, in that time, without an alarm, you'll be set for the rest of the day.
Jared:And that has been something that's been in my head since I was a student here twenty five years ago. Is there any truth to that? Like, instead of looking for the amount of hours that you sleep, is there, like, if you can find a magic three hour or four hour time to wake up, does that also do it?
Chao Liu:That's probably true, I would say, because it really varies from individual to individual. One thing is, again, just simply ask them how do you feel next morning. So the subjective feeling
Jared:Okay.
Chao Liu:About your sleep quality is really important. It's again, it's not about how long you sleep. You can sleep ten hours or twenty hours, but still feel tired the next morning. Yeah. So, yeah, different so some people need more sleep.
Chao Liu:Other people need less sleep. But even just for a short period of time for the short sleep, if their their quality is good, less interrupted, less wake up time, yeah, that can ensure the next morning they have enough energy. Okay.
Jared:I'll have to try that then. So practically speaking, you know, outside of us telling our students, hey, you need more sleep or checking up on them, what are some things that our listeners, educators can do to help students who maybe are sleep deprived or lacking motivation and we think it's because of sleep, besides telling them to get to bed earlier? What what else could we do?
Chao Liu:Well, just as as a professor, as a brother in in Christ, just ask them to check on them, get to know them personally, know their struggles, know their life issues, and then just talk to them. Be compassionate, I would say. Yeah. Yeah. So be with them, talk with them, check on their sleep, and check on other issues in their life going on in their life and pray with them as well.
Chao Liu:Yeah. So it's academic is not just about academic. A lot of other factors can influence their academic performance as well.
Jared:Yeah. It's the teaching the whole student idea, serving the whole student.
Chao Liu:Yeah. Well, there are two these two aspects we should balance these two aspects. So about the course schedule. Yeah. I think for a first year college student, maybe try to put less fewer early classes on their schedule.
Chao Liu:This could be a good option. But the other part is their own responsibility. So we should educate them about the importance of sleep. Not not just only about the the sleep, but about exercise, about their diet as well. So educate them, give them more workshop and classes to tell them the importance of these other things in their life as well.
Chao Liu:Yeah. So really have a balanced view about their course schedule and about their their life, their physical, psychological well-being as well. Yeah.
Jared:So say again. I don't know if I misheard you. You're saying you'd recommend students have morning classes?
Chao Liu:No. For the first year, I will prefer not to have, like, early classes for first year student because they are still adjusting, making some adjustment on their schedule, And they're and they're biological they biologically inclined to stay up late. Sure. Because they're they don't feel sleepy just like 40 years old does. They don't feel that sleepy during the late night.
Chao Liu:Sure. Late night. Yeah. They
Jared:feel Plus, you don't have your parents knocking on your door saying, get to sleep.
Rob:Yeah. Are you still up?
Chao Liu:No. So they are still making some adjustment as they go through the years, you know, at at college,
Rob:and
Chao Liu:they learn they learn more the importance of sleep, the importance of good lifestyle. Yeah.
Rob:I think about those who listen to us k through 12. There also we have folks that listen to us from other countries. And I think some countries maybe maybe have a different type of sleep and rest schedule. I can think of those countries that have siestas in the middle of the day. My son was over in Italy and early morning stuff is not a thing for the most part over there.
Rob:You wouldn't see a lot of people out super early in the morning. And my son was telling me, he's like, yeah, most everybody here, like, they don't eat either at the same time that we eat. Like, it's very common for them to eat their last meal or something closer to nine and then spend more time out until twelve or one in the morning. And I've often wondered, well, how in the world do they make it as a country? Like, if that's the way everybody's, like, operating.
Rob:But have you seen any benefits to countries like that that have different types of sleep patterns?
Chao Liu:I have not, but it's no wonder because geographic areas different geographic areas can have an impact as well. So Okay. For example, people get up late because the sun is not up. Yeah. So there's no sunlight.
Chao Liu:So different people are so people from different areas have different sleep pattern, mainly because they are located differently in different areas. So we should not put a standard, say, okay. So this is the pattern we should use across the world. Yeah. Because a lot of factor environmental factor, it can play a role as well.
Jared:Yeah. That's cool.
Rob:So it sounds like you're saying something you mentioned when the sun's up and the sun's down. Does that That
Chao Liu:can affect your sleep as well. Yeah.
Rob:Should we try to keep ourselves in terms of when we sleep in in those patterns? Like, when the sun's up, we're up. When the sun's down, we're down? Again Oversimplification.
Chao Liu:Again, people are different. Yeah. So if you find your pattern and that works for you, that's great. Yeah. So just in the next morning and ask yourself a question, how do you feel?
Chao Liu:How am how am I feeling now? Yeah. So if I'm not feeling well, probably I need to adjust my sleep schedule. And go to bed early and, yeah, and get up early.
Jared:Feel like I need to do a sleep schedule on myself. And in my watch and my phone give me a report on my sleeping from the night before, and it gives me a score. Like, you scored a 95 out of a 100. And I'm like, I feel terrible. I'm not sure how that happened.
Jared:But because it measures like your breathing patterns, your heart rate Mhmm. And your when you jostle or whatever in the middle of the night.
Chao Liu:So again, different people can have different schedule and patterns. Yeah. Just find your pattern and that works for you.
Rob:Oh, that's very good. I appreciate that. I think the thing I think about us too is I think about the k through 12 sector, like I was saying, and and and teachers who have students that come in from different areas of life and the circumstances like you were saying, their factors are different. They may not have the security. They may not have the environment.
Rob:And I I just sometimes wonder, you know, what would be different for that child if they had want a safer place to be. Consistent food, if if that's an issue. Right? Yeah. Just food and safety.
Chao Liu:Yeah. Those are important factors. But as a family, you can protect them against you can buffer against those risk as well. So provide stability in your family and provide emotional warmth and and and just care for them, love them, that can buffer against those risk factors from the environment as well. Yeah.
Rob:That's good work.
Jared:Yeah. It's really great.
Rob:Really great. Well, doctor Liu, thank you so much for joining us. Well, thank you for having me. I want you to come back when you have the screen.
Chao Liu:Oh, new data. Okay. I'm excited too. We love new data.
Jared:So We love new data. Please come back and talk to us and appreciate it.
Ryan:Thanks for listening to this episode of Transform Your Teaching. If you have any questions or comments about our discussion with doctor Chao Lu, feel free to email us at ctlpodcast@cedarville.edu. You can also connect with us on our LinkedIn page. And finally, don't forget to check out our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog. Thanks for listening.