Sleep, Learning and Wellbeing in NUS Undergraduates: The NUS1000 Study (NUS1000)

NUS1000 is a large scale freshman-year study of undergraduate sleep, well-being and learning patterns that has unique key features: (1) continuous objective multi-dimensional data gathered with passive sensing of sleep and stress over a semester, (2) utilisation of Learning Management System-based outcome data as a marker of study behaviour and academic achievement. The goal is to gather information that can be used to improve student sleep, mental wellbeing and performance.

Study Overview

• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Conditions: Sleep; Well-Being, Psychological
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Sleep and well-being tracking

Detailed Description

The first year in university can be a challenging experience for undergraduates who must learn to cope with learning in an unfamiliar environment, form new relationships, live away from home and/or might have to manage personal finances for the first time. These academic, social, and personal demands can result in significant stress, affecting sleep, learning and mental/emotional wellbeing. Characterizing and understanding the time-course and inter-relationship of these demands and their consequences is crucial for making science-based improvements to a student's university experience. To this end, the investigators will longitudinally evaluate sleep, learning and wellbeing in ~1000 first-year students as they adapt to university life to understand how these behaviours fluctuate and interact throughout the academic term.

• Study Type: Observational
• Enrollment (Estimated): 500

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

• Sampling Method: Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

NUS Freshmen students

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• NUS first-year students with smartphones operating on Android 8.0 and up, or iOS 14.0 or later

Exclusion Criteria:

Participants will be required to :

1. Have their sleep and physical activity rhythms will be recorded via wearable sensors, while they continue daily life as usual.
2. Complete periodic questionnaires, short daily surveys and daily audio diaries on their smartphones.
3. Agree to interactions with their smartphones and as well as grades tracked. Participants who do not agree to have these measures recorded will not be eligible for the study.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in sleep duration and timing from the start to the end of the semester	The Oura ring is a sleep-tracking device worn on the finger. During the study, participants will need to sync their devices to a mobile app.	20 weeks
Change from baseline sleep habits from the start to the end of the semester	Participants will also be required to complete a set of sleep questionnaires probing sleep habits (bedtime, wake time, time taken to fall asleep, etc.)	Week 1-2, Week 8-9, and Week 17-18
Change in daily well-being from the start to the end of the semester	Participants will be prompted to fill in brief questions on daily well-being. At the end of each assessment, participants will be required to record an audio clip of their day, without any personal identifiers, for mood/sentiment analysis.	20 weeks
Change from baseline well being from the start to the end of the semester	Participants will also be required to complete a set of well-being questionnaires (e.g., feelings of connectedness or isolation, levels of stress, etc.)	Week 1-2, Week 8-9, and Week 17-18
Change in learning outcomes from the start to the end of the semester	Grades from quiz/assignments for each module will be collected.	20 weeks
Change in learning patterns from the start to the end of the semester	Student interactions with the LMS-system will be collected, such as the number of page/file views.	20 weeks
Change in mood from the start to the end of the semester	At the end of each day, participants will be required to record an audio clip of their day, without any personal identifiers, for mood analysis.	20 weeks
Change in time-use patterns from the start to the end of the semester	Participants will be asked to fill out a time-use diary over three 2-week periods throughout the semester, indicating the activities they engaged in over the past day	Week 1-2, Week 8-9, and Week 17-18
Change in smartphone touchscreen interaction patterns from the start to the end of the semester	Phone taps will be tracked automatically through an EU-GDPR (the European Union's stringent privacy regulation) compliant smartphone app (QuantActions). This application logs human-smartphone screen interactions during regular use by logging a location-specific timestamp for each screen contact.	20 weeks

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in movement patterns from the start to the end of the semester	The investigator's in-house smartphone app (Z4IP) will extract movement patterns from location data that will only be kept on the participant's phone up to 96 hours for these computations. The extracted movement patterns (and not geographical locations) will then be uploaded to secure servers, tagged to subject IDs without any personal identifiers, i.e., names and emails will not be linked to their movement patterns. As this component is optional, participants will be asked to indicate if they would like to opt-in at the informed consent stage.	20 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: National University of Singapore

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Estimated): July 30, 2023
• Primary Completion (Estimated): August 1, 2024
• Study Completion (Estimated): August 1, 2024

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: June 27, 2023
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 26, 2023
• First Posted (Actual): August 4, 2023

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): August 4, 2023
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 26, 2023
• Last Verified: July 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: NUS1000

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: UNDECIDED

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No