A new study showed that students consistently fare better at classes that fit their biological clock and worse at classes that don’t — raising new questions about traditional class times.

新研究表明：若课程时间符合生物钟，学生会学得更好;若课程时间不符合生物钟，学生就学得较差。这令我们对传统上课时间提出新的质疑。

We all know that one person who just can’t wake up in the morning. Twenty alarm clocks, snooze after snooze, a grumpy walk to the morning coffee — the whole nine yards. Well, those people are bound to have lower grades in the early classes, but it’s not just them. According to a new study, everyone fares worse outside of their comfort time.

我们都知道，有些人早晨就是醒不来——他们设置二十个闹钟，不停地多睡5分钟，起床后脾气暴躁……对这部分人来说，早课成绩必然会下降。然而，他们不是唯一的受害者。这项新研究表明，只要跨出舒适时间，所有人的成绩都会受影响。

Researchers tracked the personal daily online activity profiles of nearly 15,000 college students as they logged into campus servers. They sorted them into three groups — “night owls,” “daytime finches” and “morning larks” — based on when they tended to be more active.

研究人员通过校园服务器，追踪15,000名大学生的个人日常上网情况。他们根据活跃时间，将学生分为三组：“夜猫子”、“早起鸟”、“日间雀”。

They found that when students were working out of sync to their biological clock (like night owls in the morning or morning larks in the afternoon), they would suffer from a “social jet lag” — a condition in which peak alertness times are at odds with work, school or other demands. However, most notably, most students were out of sync with school hours.

结果发现，当学习时间和生物钟不同步时(如夜猫子在早晨学习或早起鸟在下午学习)，学生会出现“社会时差”——即头脑最清醒的时间和工作或学习时间不同步。

“We found that the majority of students were being jet-lagged by their class times, which correlated very strongly with decreased academic performance,” said study co-lead author Benjamin Smarr, a postdoctoral fellow who studies circadian rhythm disruptions in the lab of UC Berkeley psychology professor Lance Kriegsfeld.

其中，最值得注意的是：大多数学生和上课时间不同步。研究昼夜节律紊乱的博士后研究员、本研究的主要作者Benjamin Smarr表示，大部分学生和上课时间存在时差，这和学业成绩下降存在非常显著的相关关系。

Social lag wasn’t only associated with decreased academic performance — it was also linked with obesity and excessive alcohol and tobacco use.

“社会时差”不仅和学业成绩下降有关，也和肥胖、酗酒、抽烟存在联系。

Researchers say that this research supports shifting school hours to a time that’s more accessible to most students. Rather than admonish students for going to sleep too late, schools should adapt to their biological clocks, taking advantage of the time of day when students are most capable of learning. They also call for an individualization of the teaching process — where different students learn at different times, to facilitate academic performance.

研究人员表示，学校应该调整上课时间，使它更适合大部分学生。与其劝告学生不要太晚睡觉，不如主动适应学生的生物钟，让学生得以利用学习能力最佳的时间段。此外，他们也提倡“个性化教学”——让不同学生在不同时间段学习，从而提高学业成绩。

Our research indicates that if a student can structure a consistent schedule in which class days resemble non-class days, they are more likely to achieve academic success

该研究也表明，如果学生能够保持规律的学习习惯(没课的日子和有课的日子一样)，那么便更有可能取得学业成就。