Cognitive fatigue influences students’ performance on standardized tests
Open accessAbstract
Using test data for all children attending Danish public schools between school years 2009/10 and 2012/13, we examine how the time of the test affects performance. Test time is determined by the weekly class schedule and computer availability at the school. We find that, for every hour later in the day, test performance decreases by 0.9% of an SD (95% CI, 0.7-1.0%). However, a 20- to 30-minute break improves average test performance by 1.7% of an SD (95% CI, 1.2-2.2%). These findings have two important policy implications: First, cognitive fatigue should be taken into consideration when deciding on the length of the school day and the frequency and duration of breaks throughout the day. Second, school accountability systems should control for the influence of external factors on test scores.
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In children, fatigue is associated with poorer school performance.
“Similar deleterious effects are observed in in children, in whom fatigue is associated with poorer school performance [22,23,24].”
From Vitamins and Minerals for Energy, Fatigue and Cognition: A Narrative Review of the Biochemical and Clinical Evidence (2020) · cites this paper as [22]
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Marcos‐Frutos, D., Leban, Ž., Li, Z., Zhang, X., Lara, P. M., Alix‐Fages, C., Jiménez‐Martínez, P., Zebboudji, N., Caillet, A., Redondo, B., et al. (2025) · Nutrients · doi:10.3390/nu17060940 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
“Mental fatigue can impair cognitive performance during working activities [4], driving [5], or studying [6].”
Pretrial release judgments and decision fatigue
Shroff, R., & Vamvourellis, K. (2022) · Judgment and Decision Making · doi:10.1017/s1930297500009384 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
“The fact that observed changes in decision rates only occur at certain times — and are quite small — stand in contrast to decision patterns observed in other contexts (Danziger et al., 2011a; Linder et al., 2014; Sievertsen et al., 2016; Hsiang et al., 2019).”
Can text messages save lives? A field experiment on blood donor motivation
Fosgaard, T. R., Hansen, L. G., Jacobsen, C., Sørensen, E., Romose, M., & Ullum, H. (2019) · Transfusion · doi:10.1111/trf.15633 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
Setbacks in Self-Control: Failing Not Mere Resisting Impairs Subsequent Self-Control
Wenzel, M., Rowland, Z., Hofmann, W., & Kubiak, T. (2020) · Social Psychological and Personality Science · doi:10.1177/1948550619888875 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
SuvethaSri, S., Kamath, A., & Poojary, S. (2020) · Complementary Medicine Research · doi:10.1159/000506972 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Karami, H., Dehnou, V. V., Nazari, A., & Gahreman, D. E. (2020) · Journal of Exercise Science & Fitness · doi:10.1016/j.jesf.2020.11.003 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
The Dynamics of Inattention in the (Baseball) Field
Archsmith, J., Heyes, A., Neidell, M., & Sampat, B. N. (2021) · The Economic Journal · doi:10.1093/ej/ueaf030 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Arora, V., Thabane, A., Parpia, S., Calic, G., & Bhandari, M. (2025) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-025-21398-4 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Reid, B., Schreiber, K., Shawhan, J., Stewart, E., Burch, R. F. V., & Reimann, W. (2020) · International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics · doi:10.1016/j.ergon.2020.102942 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
“…boards, utilizing dual coding (i.e. putting words with pictures) to transfer information (Amit et al., 2009), exercise (Jain et al., 2015), sleep habits (Smith-Coggins et al., 1997), and the knowledge that reaction time is quicker during exhaling versus inhaling (Buchsbaum and Callaway, 1965).”
BackgroundResultWenzel, M., Rowland, Z., Zahn, D., & Kubiak, T. (2019) · European Journal of Personality · doi:10.1002/per.2208 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Protecting an important goal: When prior self-control increases motivation for active goal pursuit
Jia, L.-L., Hirt, E. R., & Fishbach, A. (2019) · Journal of Experimental Social Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2019.103875 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Cognitive Endurance as Human Capital
Brown, C., Kaur, S., Kingdon, G., & Schofield, H. K. (2024) · The Quarterly Journal of Economics · doi:10.1093/qje/qjae043 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Prolonged theoretical classes impact students’ perceptions: an observational study
Kotnik, P., Roelands, B., & Bogataj, Š. (2024) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1278396 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Humor in Supreme Court oral arguments
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Neonatal health of parents and cognitive development of children
Kreiner, C. T., & Sievertsen, H. H. (2019) · Journal of Health Economics · doi:10.1016/j.jhealeco.2019.102247 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
“The income and wealth measures of Statistics Denmark are based on third-party 2Data from the National Tests in Danish Public schools is fairly new, but has been used for research before (e.g., Andersen et al., 2016; Sievertsen et al., 2016).”
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“Cognitive fatigue has also been shown to influence the performance of students on standardized tests [7].”
BackgroundAssessment of Cognitive Fatigue from Gait Cycle Analysis
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Do Testing Conditions Explain Cyber Charter Schools’ Failing Grades?
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“These results con fi rm research from TPS showing that as student fatigue increases, standardized test scores may decrease (Ackerman & Kanfer, 2009; Sievertsen et al., 2016).”
BackgroundResultGlobal warming, pollution and cognitive developments
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In the eye of the beholder – how course delivery affects anatomy education
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“Testing- and “Zoom-” fatigues are other potential problems that typically occur in an online teaching environment (Bailenson, 2021; Sievertsen et al., 2016).”
BackgroundSchepers, A. M., Schorrlepp, L., de Vries, J. D., de Kloe, T., van der Linden, D., & Bijleveld, E. (2023) · Consciousness and Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.concog.2023.103558 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Reconceptualizing Ego Depletion as Transient Cognitive FatiguePreprint
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Revisiting file context for source code summarization
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“To mitigate the threat of participant exhaustion we restrict the time of our study to around 1 h as recommended in related work (Sievertsen et al. 2016).”
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PowerPoint Use in the Undergraduate Biology Classroom: Perceptions and Impacts on Student Learning
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Psychological stress in Northeast Indian students pursuing their higher studies in Mangalore
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“For example, Sievertsen, Gino, and Piovesan (2016) found that test performance on the Danish Government National Tests steadily decreased during the school day and concluded that the effect was due to increasing cognitive fatigue.”
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“Circadian fatigue, often stemming from sleep deprivation, significantly impacts human performance across physical [49, 57] and cognitive domains [27, 86].”
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“That a negative, statistically significant relationship emerges in mathematics exams makes sense given that fatigue appears to have a particularly pronounced impact on mathematics achievement (Sievertsen et al., 2016).”
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“As already shown, structured breaks during cognitive tasks seem essential in educational and work contexts to reduce fatigue effects, helping individuals sustain attention and accuracy (Kim et al., 2018; Sievertsen et al., 2016).”
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“When students experience mental fatigue or mental tiredness, this impairs learners’ ability to focus on crucial elements of targeted tasks and their decision-making abilities (Sievertsen et al., 2016).”
Predicting Students Final Academic Performance Using Deep Learning Techniques
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Use of brain-computer interface in educational paradigm
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“Researchers indicate that the cause of mental weariness remains unknown; nonetheless, a kind of "mental fuel" is depleted [37].”
Physical and Digital Educational Escape Room for Chemical Education
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No seasonality in cognitive performance among adolescents at a subarctic latitude (69°N)
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- Authors
- Sievertsen, H. H., Gino, F., & Piovesan, M.
- Affiliations
- Danish National Centre for Social Research (DK)
- Harvard Business School, Harvard University, Boston, MA 02163;
- University of Copenhagen (DK)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2016-02-16
- Volume
- 113
- Issue
- 10
- Pages
- 2621-2624
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC4790980
- OpenAlex
- W2281113764
- Cited by
- 194
- References
- 25
- Citations by year
- 2026: 16 · 2025: 24 · 2024: 28 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 28 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 25 · 2018: 16 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 5
- FWCI
- 81.37
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Research at the University of Copenhagen (University of Copenhagen) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- Bristol Research (University of Bristol) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- Explore Bristol Research (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Danmarks Frie Forskningsfond (09-070295)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › School Choice and Performance
- Social Sciences › Education › Educational Outcomes and Influences
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Educational Assessment and Improvement
- Keywords
- mental fatigue, standardized test performance, school holidays, school day length, computer availability, school accountability, academic performance, Danish public schools
- MeSH terms
- Achievement, Algorithms, Child, Cognition, Denmark, Educational Measurement, Mental Fatigue, Humans, Learning, Models, Theoretical, Schools, Students
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Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
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