Association between spoken and written communication, sleep quality, and levels of drowsiness in engineering students

Abstract

The present study aims to examine the link between self-perception on sleep quality and drowsiness level and the oral and written communicational competence of engineering students from six different degree programs. Sleep quality is an important psychophysical condition for an adequate development of higher education formative processes. This raises questions regarding its role on the acquisition of professional skills in competency-based educational models. A descriptive-correlational design is applied and 153 students from a Chilean state university are surveyed. The results show that there is no association between sleep quality and oral and written communication, but significant differences are observed between these variables when assessing by gender, degree program, and written communication. It is concluded that for engineering students there is no mediating effect between sleep quality, drowsiness, and the ability to communicate orally or in writing.