Wendy Owen
"Students who suffer test anxiety may improve their exam results by writing about their worries first"
The Oregonian
March 10, 2011
URL: http://www.oregonlive.com/washingtoncounty/index.ssf/2011/03/students_who_suffer_test_anxie.html
Summary: This article is about ways to ease students' pressure from tests. There are many ways suggested, such as eating a good breakfast and getting plenty of sleep before the tests. Now there is a research shows that students can write down their worries before taking tests, which will help them improve testing scores. The study focused on ninth graders. Students who have high pressure can benefit from writing their worries. But students with low pressure can not benefit from it. The assessment coordinator Ann Zitzelsberger in Tualatin High School was good at reading students' stress. She will give students notes saying "relax" or "you can do it" to encourage them. Other ways also mentioned in this article like dancing before the test.
Intended audience: Students, teachers, parents
Key points: 1. At that moment where they want to show their best work, they often don't.
2. The researchers found that worries about tests compete for the brain's working memory, which is used for performance.
3. About 25 percent of students suffer from a high level of test anxiety and could be helped.
Relevance: It is interesting to read this article. I totally understand students who get nervous before taking tests. Things happened in China when I was a student. Many students are trained by teachers as good test takers. There are students who got too nervous to pass tests. "Luckily", I was trained as a good test taker too. Many methods used by parents to help their kids pass tests. For example, when the university entrance exam was coming, parents would wait for their children outside school gate while they were taking the tests for about 3 hours. It was such a big deal that if students failed in the first test, their following tests would be affected. There were tragedies happened when students did not do well on their scores. I really don't want to see similar things happen here in America. Test scores are truly not a big deal, but students have to have good scores to go to college. Whose fault is it to put pressure on students?
Test anxiety is something we all have to overcome and this is a skill that follows you through life. Getting over the fear of public speaking, job interviews, or just performance anxiety anywhere is important to success as an individual. There are a lot of great techniques for learning this ability and this article shows one very good one.
ReplyDeleteFinding yourself frozen or degraded in life's trying circumstances does no one any good. Learning how to overcome this type of axiety is a gift a good teacher can give which will indeed last a lifetime.
I am not sure I have ever suffered from any real or severe test anxiety but then again the atmosphere is different now. The stakes are so high. The pressure is felt not only by the student but teachers and administrators and maybe even some parents. I like Dougs last point that learning to overcome this type of anxiety is a gift a good teacher can give - a lasting one. I wonder if this will be a difficult task for a teacher who is feeling anxiety herself becaue her pay is tied to the students performance?
ReplyDeleteI wonder if in the future there will be a methods courses for preservice teachers on teaching test prep? I do think there are techniques that once learned help with test taking.
I agree with Doug here. Being able to perform under pressure is an essential skill to have. Whether it is speaking, test taking, paper writing, or emergency response, being able to effectively perform well, adapt, and think on one's feet are necessary human skills to have.
ReplyDeleteThe question is, how much testing is too much testing? Certainly test taking skills are not the only thing that we would like students to take away from compulsory education.
Furthermore, it is not always the best method of proving that one "understands" the material. And, yes, I do fall on the side of Bruner here. Understanding is something that can be obtained and proven--not objectively, but it can be.
Jessica brings up a good side to this argument. All of the things we are discussing in class, all of the comments of teachers not wanting student teacher observers because of the tests! I am getting a bit worried myself, how much importance is placed on student test scores when evaluating my performance as a teacher? Especially a first year teacher? I have never really felt anxiety for text taking, but I have felt anxiety in just trying to finish enormous amounts of school work.
ReplyDelete