Does the transition into daylight saving time affect students’ performance?

Periodical
Economics of Education Review
Year
2017
Relates to study/studies
TIMSS 2011
PIRLS 2011

Does the transition into daylight saving time affect students’ performance?

Abstract

We use international assessment data on more than 22,000 students from six European countries to investigate whether the transition into daylight saving time affects elementary students’ performance in low-stakes tests in the week after the time change. Exploiting the time shift as a natural experiment, we find that the effect of changing the clock is very small in magnitude and not statistically significant in all three testing areas (math, science, and reading). Therefore, our results challenge the prevailing public opinion that daylight saving time should be abandoned because of its detrimental effects on schoolchildren’s performance.