…make it a reality for your students.
About unresolved test anxiety:
“It will take you over and it
will take you out.”
--GCC Instructor
Lisa A. Sheldon, MS. M. Ed
Greenfield Community College
MTA Summer Conference
August 5th, 2013
Presentation outline
 Test anxiety:
 The good, the bad & the truly ugly
 Influencing factors
 What can STUDENTS do about it?
 Resources and skill development
 What can INSTRUCTORS do about it?
 Setting the stage for success
 New thoughts about exams
What is text anxiety?
 Performance Anxiety
 It interferes with test preparation and performance
 Prevents students from showing or demonstrating
what they have learned and know
 Types:
 Test anxious students
 Unprepared students
 State anxiety
What is text anxiety?
Signs of text anxiety in your student’s head:
 Mental blanking out
 Racing thoughts
 Difficulty concentrating
 Negative self-talk about:



Past performance
Consequences of failing
How everyone else is doing
 Knowing the answers after the test
What is text anxiety?
Signs of text anxiety in your student’s body:
 Nausea
 Rapid Pulse
 Rapid breathing
 Sweating
 Shaking & trembling
 Headache
 Dry mouth
 Muscle tension
 Sleeplessness
What is text anxiety?
Other characteristics:
 Timing: Before, during and after the main event
 Both types impair performance:
 Somatic: worry and fear
 Cognitive: ability & processing
 Trait v. state anxiety
What is text anxiety? Causes
1.
Test anxiety is a learned behavior.
2. Association of grades & personal worth.
3. Feeling of a lack of control.
4. Teacher who embarrass or shame students.
5. Being placed in courses above your ability.
6. Fear of alienation from parents, family, and friends
due to poor grades.
7. Timed tests and the fear of not finishing.
http://www.wvup.edu/academics/more_test_anxiety_tips.htm
How can test anxiety be good?
When at appropriate levels…
 It is a normal reaction to testing
 For a certain group of students:
 Increases motivation to study
 Focuses attention on studying tasks
 Promotes deeper levels of engagement with material
 Stimulates organizational thinking
 Increases empowerment and self-efficacy
When test anxiety is bad…
 Students earn lower grades
 Stress increases and can affect health
 Physical illness
 Greater susceptibility to colds
 Self-doubt and loss of confidence
 They lose control over the testing situation
…and when it is truly ugly.
 Test anxiety becomes self-perpetuating
 Students lose self-confidence
 Feelings of failure and negative self-talk take over
 They fail and drop classes
 And…they leave school
Quiz Time… My rules
 How much do you know about test anxiety?
1.
With a partner, complete the pink Test Anxiety quiz.
2. You will have 5 minutes to mark all your answers.
3. Speak as loudly as possible and feel free to walk
around the room.
4. Anyone missing more than 2 answers will be asked to
leave the presentation.
What is text anxiety? The Quiz
1. Students are born with test anxiety.
All
2. Test anxiety is a mental illness.
3. Test anxiety cannot be reduced.
FALSE
4. Any level of test anxiety is bad.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
All students who are not prepared have test anxiety.
Students with test anxiety cannot learn math.
Students who are well prepared will not have test anxiety.
Very intelligent students do not have test anxiety.
Attending class & doing homework will reduce all test anxiety.
Being told to relax during a test will make you relaxed.
Doing nothing about test anxiety will make it go away.
Reducing test anxiety will guarantee better grades.
http://www.wvup.edu/academics/more_test_anxiety_tips.htm
Test Anxiety: Cause and effect
Models
Coping Mechanisms
Personality type
Inherent traits
Skill development
Performance
Test Anxiety
+/-
Cognition & metacognition
Sheldon, L. (2010) Test Anxiety: Influencing Factors and Potential Remedies for College Students.
Unpublished paper
Test anxiety: Influencing factors
 Coping mechanisms
 Personal Beliefs & empowerment




Self-efficacy
Agency
Expectations
Locus of control
 Perception

Threat v. challenge appraisal
 Affect


Optimism v. pessimism
Disposition
Test anxiety: Influencing factors
 Personality type and inherent traits
 Response to stimuli
 Environmental and situational stressors
 Generalized anxiety
Test anxiety: Influencing factors
 Skill development
 School foundations: readiness to learn
 Experience in the college environment
 Study skills: surface v. deep studying
 Experience with specific subject matter
Test anxiety: Influencing factors
 Cognitive and meta-cognition
 How students think and use knowledge
 Attention to learning and information processing
 Strategies for learning
 Expenditure of energy on emotions v. cognition
 Test taking strategies
 Comfort with different types of exams and questions


Data recall
Synthesis and integration
Reducing Anxiety: Target areas
 Skill enhancement
 Best practices of successful students
 Empowerment
 Resources
 College and classroom
 Physical interventions & emotional control
 Health and wellness
 Short-term and long-term relaxation techniques

control emotional (somatic) & worry (cognitive) test anxiety
What can STUDENTS do?
 Best practices to reduce test anxiety: Somatic
 Control emotions
 Limit negative self-talk
 Visualize
 Verbalize or journal
 Review what has worked before
 Relaxation techniques




Deep breathing
Avoiding caffeine and stimulants
Good sleep and nutrition
Exercise
What can STUDENTS do?
With your neighbor, share your best advice
and techniques for effective studying.
What works?
What can STUDENTS do?
 Best practices to reduce test anxiety: Cognitive
 Study Style:







Distributed learning v. cramming
Online resources
Text book
Creating a study space and schedule you studying
Getting a tutor/ peer tutoring services
Study Groups
PRACTICE
What is an instructor to do?
For test anxiety related to lack of preparation, what are
your actions and suggestions?
 What fits with your class and discipline?
 What fits with your personality?
 What fits with your students needs?
For test anxiety at the emotional and trait level what
kinds of interventions might be most appropriate?
What can INSTRUCTORS do?
 Instructors are an important part of testing
 Impact both + and – emotions about testing
 Course and classroom policies
 Preparing for the testing event
 Helping mechanisms and Interventions
 Providing help and resources
What can INSTRUCTORS do?
Best practices to reduce test anxiety
 Invite Student Communication





Post your office hours
Encourage students to visit and talk about material or course
concerns
Write students notes & email
Help them review old exams to understand where they need
more skill development
Make yourself approachable & welcoming
What can INSTRUCTORS do?
Course and classroom policies
 High stakes testing



How much is a test worth?
What is the right balance?
Is a cumulative exam appropriate?
 Evaluation through other means




Portfolios
Projects
Journals
Performance-based items or events
What can INSTRUCTORS do?
Preparing for the testing event before it happens
 Stimulate strong learning during the course
 Focus attention
 Movement and dynamic activities
 Interesting jokes, pictures & activities create excitement
 Provide organized learning structures for students to
contextualize their learning
 Learn what is unclear to your students:

Muddiest point, one-minute papers, peer sharing
 Promote distributed learning
 Allow time and space for students to practice the types
of questions they are likely to see on exams
What can INSTRUCTORS do?
Helping Mechanisms and interventions
 Review sessions
 Discussion of test format
 Encourage students to ask for clarification during the
exam
 Study groups
 Review sheets & content information
 Practice questions and sample quizzes
 Promote exam triage when students get stuck
What can INSTRUCTORS do?
During the assessment





Quite, distraction free-environment
Time allowance
Testing center as alternative site
Barriers
Allow students to ask questions
 Read questions to students
 Rephrase
 Define words
 Allow students to go the bathroom, drink of water, etc.
 Suggest that students
 Read the entire exam and ask questions as a class
 Use the exam as a resource
 Skip questions they don’t know
 Start with questions they know
What can INSTRUCTORS do?
During the assessment…what often doesn’t work
 Crib cards
 Open book in-class exams
 Team or partner exams
What can INSTRUCTORS do?
Providing help and resources
 Academic Counseling
 Personal Counseling
 Tutoring services
 Share study tips and techniques
 Discuss how to study for your class
 Invitations to office hours
 Writing notes to students
What can INSTRUCTORS do?
Writing and giving a good test
 Vary types of questions to acknowledge different
learning styles and strengths
 Familiarize students with format and question type
 Make exams short and manageable
 Test what matters—concepts not trivia
 Reasonable time limits or untimed tests prevents panic
 Question choice: A or B
 Share grading rubrics with students
 Control environment
 Physical barriers to give students privacy
Time for a paradigm shift
Can exams be a teachable moment?
 Students are highly aroused and motivated
 Encourage questions
 Read their work to let them know if they are on the right
track
 Reinterpret question
 Oral exams: can the student tell you the answer?
Questions?