Analysis

The Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ) is an assessment tool developed to measure an individual’s chronotype, meaning their preference for certain times of day when they are most active and productive. Chronotypes are primarily categorized into morning types (“morningness”) and evening types (“eveningness”).

Objective

The main goal of the MEQ is to determine whether a person is a morning or evening type. This information can be used to optimize health, performance, and well-being, and to adjust work or sleep schedules to better align with the individual’s natural preferences.

Scoring

The MEQ includes 19 questions related to:
Wake and sleep times
Energy levels
Preferred timing of activities
Each item is scored on a scale from 1 to 4 or 5, depending on the question. The total score is calculated by summing the responses, with:
Higher scores indicating a preference for morningness
Lower scores indicating a preference for eveningness
Final score categories:
Morning type: High scores (approx. 59–86)
Intermediate type: Moderate scores (approx. 42–58)
Evening type: Low scores (approx. 16–41)

References

Horne, J. A., & Östberg, O. (1976). A self-assessment questionnaire to determine morningness-eveningness in human circadian rhythms. International Journal of Chronobiology, 4(2), 97–110.
Adan, A., & Almirall, H. (1991). Horne & Östberg Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire: A reduced scale. Personality and Individual Differences, 12(3), 241–253. https://doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(91)90110-W
Roenneberg, T., Wirz-Justice, A., & Merrow, M. (2003). Life between clocks: Daily temporal patterns of human chronotypes. Journal of Biological Rhythms, 18(1), 80–90. https://doi.org/10.1177/0748730402239679