About
A sleeping man
The Big Sleep Survey 2010 is a Citizen Science & Research Project undertaken by ABC Science in conjunction with CIRUS, the NHMRC Centre for Sleep and the Woolcock Institute, Sydney.
WHAT IT INVOLVES
1. Sign up - To take part in this scientific research project you need to sign up with your login details. Once you've done this you can begin the Questionnaire..
2. The Questionnaire - This should take about 10 minutes and you can save and return if you need to. You'll answer questions about a whole range of things, from your health; to what you do in the bedroom; to whether you've ever sleepwalked. At the end of the Questionnaire you'll get a report summarising your sleep habits, pointing out any potential problem areas and highlighting some of the things you do that might be affecting your sleep - both in a good and bad way! Once you’ve completed the Questionnaire, you can then sign up to do the optional week long Sleep Diary and enter the Competition
2. The Questionnaire - This should take about 10 minutes and you can save and return if you need to. You'll answer questions about a whole range of things, from your health; to what you do in the bedroom; to whether you've ever sleepwalked. At the end of the Questionnaire you'll get a report summarising your sleep habits, pointing out any potential problem areas and highlighting some of the things you do that might be affecting your sleep - both in a good and bad way! Once you’ve completed the Questionnaire, you can then sign up to do the optional week long Sleep Diary and enter the Competition
3. The 7 Day Sleep Diary - This is optional. It should only take about 2 minutes each day for a week to log in and let us know day how much and how well you slept each night.
Note: You have to be over 11 to take part in the Big Sleep Survey. If you're aged between 11 and 16, we'd love you to sign up, but you will need your parent or guardian's approval.
WIN AN IPAD
The competition to win an iPad closed on September 6 2010 and the winner will be contacted and announced online on September 21 2010.
Competition terms and conditions
TEACHERS & SCHOOLS
The competition to win $500 worth of DVDs and books for your school closed on September 6 2010 and the winners will be contacted and announced online on September 21 2010..
WHY DO THE SCIENTISTS WANT TO DO THIS?
The Big Sleep Survey 2010 is an excellent way to gather information about the sleep habits of a large number of people. Sleep scientists normally rely on expensive phone based surveys to gather information about our sleep habits. By individuals doing it online, it will reach a much broader group of people.
The Sleep Scientists are interested in a number of things:
The Sleep Scientists are interested in a number of things:
- How our sleep habits have changed, especially in the last ten years since the 1st online survey of Australia’s sleep habits in 2000;
- Is our use of technology in the bedroom affecting the amount of sleep that we’re getting;
- How prevalent are parasomnias (sleep walking, sleep talking etc) in Australia’s population;
- How many people try to catch up on sleep on the weekend;
- How many teenagers experience phase shifting, or a desire to stay up late and sleep in the next day.
HOW SCIENCE WORKS
The Big Sleep Survey 2010 is a way to collect information for a scientific study. Like most of us, scientists have ideas about things. But to get these ideas accepted within the scientific community they first have to be proved right.
Scientists do this by collecting information, or data in experiments or surveys (like the Big Sleep Survey 2010), and then analysing the data for trends from which they draw conclusions.
The scientists behind the Big Sleep Survey 2010 will be analysing the survey data to look at how much sleep we’re getting; how many of us suffer from parasomnias; whether modern technology is affecting our sleep; and other areas.
They'll then be able to draw conclusions about whether we we're getting enough sleep; whether parasomnias are more or less common than we thought, and if mobiles should be banned from the bedroom! (just kidding)
To make sure it's an unbiased process, the scientists write down how they did their research and why they came to their conclusions, and ask other scientists to take a look at it. If other scientists think it's okay, then the research can be published. This is called the peer-review process.
When a study has been peer-reviewed and published in a scientific journal then it’s been through the rigorous scientific process. It doesn’t mean that it’s definitely a fact, but it does mean that it’s the best at that time! Most of us won't read the scientific journal article, but if the results are particularly exciting we'll probably hear about it in a news report or a magazine article!
The results from the Big Sleep Survey 2010 should eventually be published in a scientific journal and, hopefully, they'll make it into the evening news!
