Texas 8th Grade ELA Question of the Day
Test your knowledge with a hand-picked multiple-choice question.
Research question: Do school start times influence 8th graders' sleep in the United States in the last three years?
Source 1: 2023 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention research brief summarizing nationwide data on adolescent sleep and start times.
- Credibility: High (government health agency)
- Relevance: High (national, adolescents)
- Currency: High (within 3 years)
- Bias potential: Low (reports methods and limitations)
- Accessibility: High (free)
Source 2: 2022 peer-reviewed meta-analysis in a sleep medicine journal on school start times and adolescent sleep duration.
- Credibility: High (peer-reviewed synthesis)
- Relevance: High (directly addresses question)
- Currency: High (within 3 years)
- Bias potential: Low (systematic methods)
- Accessibility: Moderate (database access)
Source 3: 2021 opinion editorial arguing for later start times without data citations.
- Credibility: Low (opinion)
- Relevance: Moderate (topic-related but not evidence-based)
- Currency: Borderline (slightly older)
- Bias potential: High (persuasive intent)
- Accessibility: High (free)
Source 4: 2015 study from a single district with a small sample.
- Credibility: Moderate (peer-reviewed but dated and narrow)
- Relevance: Low to moderate (older, limited scope)
- Currency: Low (outside 3-year window)
- Bias potential: Low to moderate (limited generalizability)
- Accessibility: Moderate
Source 5: 2024 quick poll of 20 students at your school about how tired they feel.
- Credibility: Low (small, non-representative sample)
- Relevance: High locally but not national
- Currency: High
- Bias potential: High (sampling bias, self-report)
- Accessibility: High (original data)
For this inquiry, which evaluation criteria should you prioritize when deciding which sources to use as the core evidence base?