Increasing School Success
Increasing School Success: Using Coping Skills to Alleviate Test Anxiety, Bullying, and
Learned Helplessness
November 29, 2011
Sarah Atkins
800 W. Midland St.
Bay City, MI 48706
Business Phone: 989-684-7510
Home Phone: 989-450-2533
skatkins@svsu.edu
College of Education
Department of Middle/ Secondary Education
Saginaw Valley State University
University Center, MI 48710
Sarah Atkins teaches high school Science at John Glenn High School in Bangor, Michigan. She
is currently working towards a Masters Degree in Teaching.
Running Head:
Increasing School Success
Increasing School Success
Abstract
This article will discuss how coping strategies can increase school success. The areas that will be
discussed are: benefits of early intervention, reducing test anxiety, giving learning disabled
students the confidence to deal with their disability, helping girls deal with the stress of being a
girl, and how appropriate coping strategies can possibly eliminating bullying. The present article
looks at the connection between appropriate coping skills and the societal downfalls that may
occur to students without these skills. In conclusion, the research tends to show that if
appropriate coping skills are not taught to students at a young age, the students may be adversely
effected later in life.
Increasing School Success
Introduction
Today's society has increasingly become more stressful. Societies have changed over the
years and many more stressors are occurring now more than ever before (Agrawal, Garg, &
Urajnik, 2010). Families are dealing with the idea of possible loss of employment or loss of their
homes and the fact that they may have to leave their hometown in search of work. It is shown in
a study that unemployed families have higher levels of stress (Dimkpa & Wilcox 2010). When
stress levels increase, people are not able to cope in a normal manner, and they need to let
something go. Some parents when faced with financial stress are unable to cope with the
demands of parenting (McKelvey, Fitzgerald, Schiffman, & Von Eye, 2002). The stress of
parenting has been linked to causing children to negatively develop (Creasey & Jarvis, 1994).
Notably, parents and families are influenced by the uncertain and stressful times, so are children.
Children need to develop coping skills, through their families, to deal with all of life's
issues. Society is now dealing with children that cannot cope with failure, the idea of being
different, having a learning disability, or normal problems that arise during the day. Teaching
resiliency skills can benefit the entire family (Rothwell & Han, 2010). The sooner these skills
can be taught, the more beneficial they will be to children. Therefore, coping strategies should be
a required class in all elementary schools.
Students in higher grades of school may face more severe daily stressors (such as
drinking, drugs, or pregnancy) than younger students. If these students have not been taught
coping strategies, they may regress back to previous learned behaviors. Students with higher
anxiety levels tend to rely on more ineffective coping strategies than effective strategies (Aysan,
Thompson & Hamarat, 2001). As the negative effects of major life events on adolescents keep
accumulating, the need to reduce this stress is also becoming more important (Aysan et al.,
Increasing School Success
2001). Since appropriate coping skills may not be known to these children, they need to be
taught coping skills. All children spend the majority of their days at school and therefore could
be taught these life skills through their teachers. Teachers, though are often overwhelmed by the
number of tasks that they are expected to complete in a day, and many think of these extra
coping skills as yet another burden (Bulach & Butler, 2002).
This article will discuss how coping strategies can increase school success. The areas that
will be discussed are benefits of early intervention, reducing test anxiety, giving learning
disabled students the confidence to deal with their disability, helping girls deal with the stress of
being a girl, and how appropriate coping strategies can possibly eliminating bullying. Coping
strategies have been defined as plans and actions for dealing with stressful situations to lower
distress levels (Auerbach & Gramling, 1997). Teachers have realized that the behavior problems
that occur in their classrooms may have been prevented if the students have been trained with
coping skills (Allen, 2010). Interventions of coping skills, however, must also teach social skills
that are specific to enhancing all interpersonal interactions (Hallford, Borntrager, & Davis,
2006). Every school has its own unique set of challenges, and any informational programs should
be modified to each individual school. The earlier these interventions are introduced to students,
the more benefits they will provide.
Benefits of Early Intervention
Since many children today are not equipped with needed character skills and coping
skills, classrooms everywhere are dealing with more disruptions. Teachers are faced with
students that do not know how to appropriately behave and act out. Students using ineffective
coping mechanisms display high levels of test anxiety (Aysan et al., 2001). A few studies for
Increasing School Success
example, Lewis, Robinson, & Hayes, 2011; Baumeister, Storch, & Geffken, 2008 ; Macheski,
Buhrmann, Lowney, & Bush, 2008 suggest that a character education program should be
implemented in schools. These programs should begin as soon as school starts. Even though
students gain coping skills as they grow, their lives may be less complicated and easier if these
students are taught appropriate coping strategies when they are younger (Aysan et al., 2001).
One coping skill that can be taught is relaxation (Rasid & Parish, 1998). If students are taught to
relax when faced with stressful situations, they may not be so frustrated and angry. Students who
are taught coping skills at an early age may avoid many problems later in life. As stated by
Baumeister et al. (2008) it is important to incorporate early intervention instead of trying to teach
coping strategies once there already is a problem.
An excellent option that could be adopted by schools would be a program that teaches
citizenship. One such program was set-up to teach students several character traits of a good
citizen by working with animals (Szecsi, Barbero, Campo, & Toledo, 2010). The Szecsi, et al.
study showed that the students, "increased their empathy, respect, responsibility and kindness to
animals and people and maintained their empathy and respect after the program was done" p.
128. After these students developed a caring attitude towards animals, it was then carried over
into other aspects of their lives, such as their families and friends. Not only were students
struggling with behavior problems, they were also faced with the constant fear of failure or lack
of success in school.
Reducing Test Anxiety
Studies have shown for example, Hembree, 1988; Swanson & Howell, 1996 that test
anxiety increases throughout the school years. Test anxiety has been defined as anxiety that
Increasing School Success
creates irrelevant thought, preoccupation, and decreases attention and concentration that lead to
memory difficulties (Eysenck, 2001). Students build up more fear for tests as they see that even
when they study for the test, they do not do well. Hembree (1988) shows that, "pupils in the early
grades have little test anxiety but its prevalence rises sharply in grades 3 to 5" p. 73. Therefore,
coping skills to help test anxiety need to be taught before third grade. Students that have been
taught coping strategies may have their test anxiety reduced.
To adolescent students, test taking can become a major source of stress (Smyth, 1995;
Aysan et al., 2001). A major problem that leads to test anxiety is worry (Bembenutty, 2009). As
students evaluate situations they start to worry because of past experiences with tests, and these
worry conditions may interfere with the individual's performance on the current test (Zeidner,
1998) In a test-conscious world, all students are becoming more and more affected by their test
performance (Keogh & French, 2001) Students allow themselves to become all worked-up and
start to think that they will fail the test before they have even tried to look at the test. It has been
shown that when anxiety is reduced, students' grades on tests and in classes have improved
(Hembree, 1988).
Test anxiety is not just a myth. It is a proven disorder that affects academic success
(Neuderth, Burkhard, & Schmidtke, 2009). Test anxiety has increased over time, possibly
because of new testing requirements or the increase in testing (Wren & Benson, 2004). Unless
test anxiety is dealt with, students can develop more anxiety over time. A coping strategy that
may alleviate test anxiety is to teach students to ignore the time constraints that are given during
an examination (Bell, 2003). When taking time out of the equation, students can focus on the test
questions only.
Increasing School Success
If students have severe anxiety it may also affect the validity of the test that is given to
them (Wicherts & Scholten, 2010). This stress can not only affect the students’ grades but also
their confidence levels. Test anxiety is assumed to only affect students that have lower grades;
yet it is shown by Burns (2004) that the students with the highest grades may have the highest
levels of test anxiety. Even though all students can benefit from learning coping strategies and
reducing any type of anxiety, some students have more difficulties in school than test anxiety.
Helping the Learning Disabled
Another problem in most schools is lack of confidence and self-esteem in learning
disabled students. Self-esteem has been defined as self-concept (Hembree, 1988). These
struggling students may have been picked on and harassed, and already feel incompetent. When
observed, learning disabled students are found to be less popular and less cooperative (Kuhne &
Wiener, 2000). During tests and exams, there is more anxiety, nervousness, frustration, and
agitation in learning disabled students (Sena, Lowe, & Lee, 2007). Learning disabled students
are frequently peer rejected, and tend to suffer from peer victimization (being picked on) more
often (Baumeister et al., 2008). Since there currently are not any classes to help students cope,
they are not able to handle the knowledge that they learn differently than the other students. With
copings strategies, these students can defend themselves or may be able to ignore the comments
more successfully. If learning disabled students are not taught coping strategies, they may be
picked on more often and harassed (Baumeister, et al., 2008).
Some strategies have been used with learning disabled students to help reduce anxiety.
One strategy that is not effective is having the teacher tell the students before the test that the test
will be difficult. The students do not perform well on the test even though they are warned and
Increasing School Success
told to study harder (Rasid & Parish, 1998). An effective strategy is having a test read to the
student. Strategies that can be used directly in the classroom offer a way to help students with
incurring very little cost (Rasid & Parish, 1998). Many students with learning disabilities have
difficulty in reading (Kavale & Reece, 1992). Therefore, an accommodation such as having a test
read maybe the little extra help needed by some of these students to be successful. Hughes
(1991) states that learning disabled students self-report that after they receive test
accommodations, such as having a test read, that are beneficial to them.
Different instruments have been developed more recently to help assess how much
anxiety learning disabled students will have on a test. These instruments, however, are not in
place currently and learning disabled students are floundering and looking for help. The
diagnostic level assigned to learning disabled students determines the type of extra help that is
provided to that student, but after emotional disorders are overlooked or under diagnosed
(Thaler, Kazemi, & Wood, 2010). Another explanation for the under diagnosing of anxiety
disorders is that the anxiety symptoms are often missed due to diagnostic overshadowing (Thaler
et al., 2010). Students with learning disabilities have been shown to have more difficulties with
concentration than students without disabilities, which also causes problems in testing (Heiman
& Precel, 2003). If these students are taught coping strategies they may not have these anxiety
levels at all (Thaler et al., 2010; Lagares & Connor, 2009). Although learning disabled students
tend to struggle with the lack of coping skills, females of all groups tend to suffer the most
without these needed skills.
Helping Girls Deal with Stress
Increasing School Success
Girls tend to have more problems dealing with anxiety than boys. Anxiety has been
defined as an individual's physiological, cognitive, and behavioral responses that stimulate
negative feelings (Sena, et al., 2007). Several studies show that females experience more
stressful events than males (Hankin, Abramson, Moffit, Silva, McGee, & Angell 1998; Hyde,
Mezulis, & Abramson 2008; Charbonneau, Mezulis, & Hyde, 2009). Girls tend to worry about
how they look, what other people are thinking, are competing for males, possessions, reputations,
and many other issues that may seem trivial but at that moment are the most important issue to
the girl.
Thoughts of school are not primary, for most teenage girls and this can possibly lead to
procrastination in some girls. Since the girls are procrastinating more, they may become even
more anxious tests. It has been shown in a few studies conducted across all grade levels that girls
have greater test anxiety than boys (Hembree, 1988; Aysan, 1991; Akca, 2011). Being female is
a major predictor of test anxiety, social humiliation, and worry (Sena et al., 2007).
Males tend to let more issues slide and therefore do not have as much internal stress as
girls. Jurnet, Beciu & Maldonado (2007) shows that females "can have from double to five
times the test anxiety compared to males" p. 850. If males are upset, they tend to escalate from
verbal violence to physical fights quickly (Boyer, 2008). Research demonstrates that females
tend to use relational bullying and boys engage in physical bullying (Hoover, Oliver, & Hazler,
1992). Males also focus on the task at hand in the classroom more often than females. It has
been shown by Bell (2003) that females tend to flourish in single-sex classrooms. When the
distractions of impressing males, trying to look their best at all times, and the feelings of jealousy
are taken away from the classrooms, females can focus on class work. If coping skills are taught
to girls when they are young, they may be more prepared to deal with these stressors later in life.
Increasing School Success
One final problem that girls have dealing with higher stress is that if the stress is not
reduced it can lead to depression (Charbonneau et al., 2009). Charbonneau et al (2009) also
suggest that how someone is emotionally effected by stress will determine their tendencies
towards depression. Negative self views are at the center of most students' depression which can
be caused by stress as well. Research shows that twenty-nine percent of victims of stressful
situations suffer clinical levels of depression (Hallford et al., 2006). Hankin, Mermelstein, &
Roesch (2007) find that girls react more strongly to stress in the form of elevated depression than
did boys. Yet, if girls have more aggressive tendencies, they may act out instead of holding in
their stress.
The Issue of Bullying
Students that are lacking coping skills have higher test anxiety, lower memory scores,
and more feelings of learned helplessness (Akca, 2011; Yousefi, 2010). These feelings of learned
helplessness if not dealt with may turn into insecurities that cause students to act out. Most
students that act out tend to pick on other students that are weaker than they and in turn display
bullying behavior. Bullying has been defined as an imbalance between two parties, or a normal
conflict that may "slide across the line" and become a more severe conflict or a problem that
causes a person distress (Allen, 2010). Christie (2005) writes that half of all children in the
United States are bullied at some time in their lives.
Another major problem that occurs from girls not having coping skills is bullying. When
schools don't address the bullying issue, female bullies thrive more often than boys (Boyer,
2008). To reduce bullying, however, the entire community needs to be involved (Brugman &
Gibbs, 2010).
Increasing School Success
Several myths about bullying exist in society: that it is only teasing or fooling around;
that some weak children deserve to be bullied and ask for it; that only boys are bullies; people
who ask for help are wimps and that bullies will go away if ignored (Scarpaci, 2006). In order to
move forward and away from the issue of bullying, all of the parties involved with bullying need
to be educated (including the victim). If coping strategies on how to deal with a person who is
acting as a bully due to insecurities are taught to all students, a community of understanding and
acceptance can be fostered. One study shows that early intervention with problem behaviors
causes a prevention of bullying later on in life (Allen, 2010).
Some of the programs that have already been created to prevent bullying are: Bully Safe
USA, which offers strategies, terminology, and scenarios to prevent bullying. The Don't Laugh at
Me Program, which has been created to reduce the physical and emotional cruelty that children
can inflict on each other. Peaceful Schools Project/ Menninger Clinic, which teaches a set of
defensive and relaxation skills. Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies, which promotes
social and emotional strategies to reduce aggression. Steps to Respect Program, which teaches
coping with bullying, general friendship skills, emotion management, and bystander
interventions (McNamee & Mercurio, 2008; Hallford et al., 2006).
Conclusion
Children are progressively acting worse in all areas of society. Some of this behavior can
be contributed to families being stressed out during these difficult economic times. Many
families have been adversely affected by the current economic recession (Rothwell & Han,
2010). Since some families do not have appropriate coping skills, they may not be able to teach
coping skills to their children. Programs for families should be put in place to help decrease
Increasing School Success
stress by teaching skills of how to cope (Creasey & Jarvis, 1994). Schools need to have the
freedom to tailor their coping skills/ character education program for the population that they
serve (Bulach & Butler, 2002). If coping strategies are taught in school, they can benefit students
in many ways such as alleviating test anxiety, reducing learned helplessness, helping girls deal
with the stress of being a girl, eliminating bullying, and providing learning disabled students the
confidence to deal with their disability.
Coping and preventive strategies can also be taught to help families face stressors more
effectively (Dimkpa & Wilcox, 2010). There are various programs to teach different skills for
better living. Conflict resolution programs teach peer mediation to help settle conflict (Howard,
Berkowitz, & Schaeffer, 2004). Life skills education programs teach positive attitudes and
practical skills (Lewis et al., 2011). Caring community programs promote positive relationships
in the school and classroom (Noddings, 2002). After being taught constructive coping
strategies, families may enhance their parenting skills and in turn help their children (Maupin,
Herb, Schiffman, & Bocknek, 2010). "Ultimately, the challenge for society, educators, and
policy makers is to identify problems that lead to stress for children as early as possible and to
promote healthy development by teaching children about possible coping strategies" (Agrawal,
et al., 2010, p. 200). Any programs that can be developed and implemented into schools to help
students succeed will be welcomed by parents, educators, and most of all, students.
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