When we think of "exam anxiety" Normally, the image of a college or university student obsessed with the imminent arrival of an exam comes to mind.
It is true that students in recent courses have been the focus of more than half a century of research on exam anxiety and its impact on grades. Researchers know that such anxiety usually has a negative impact on academic performance.
However, we also know that both schools and parents are realizing that there is also anxiety in young children and several researchers have studied how an increase in anxiety before exams in schools corresponds to an increase in the use of standardized tests that are increasingly mandatory to assess student progress.
Together with the growing demand to respond to mental health challenges in schools, educators and political actors should understand how to face and minimize the effects of exams in the anxiety of the students.
In Babies and more "More self-criticism, less complaints": the reflection on Twitter of a teacher generates an intense debate about our educational systemAt a general level, current assessment methods should be adapted to reflect contemporary knowledge of children's diverse cultural contexts, as well as a more detailed understanding of development competencies.
On a day-to-day basis, parents and teachers can prepare to support students rethinking the way the exams focus and reflecting on what example they are giving as adults.
What is test anxiety?
Normally "exam anxiety" is considered as excessive "nerves" that interfere with student performance. Symptoms of test anxiety could be classified into four general physical, emotional, behavioral and cognitive categories.
Children may have physical symptoms such as headaches, nausea, sweating and shortness of breath or a feeling of fear, depression and impotence. Behaviors may include restlessness, agitation and circumvention, while cognitive disorders may be similar to "going blank" or having accelerated or negative thoughts.
Although not all students experience each of these problems, the impact of one or more of these symptoms can be debilitating.
If these symptoms are not diagnosed or treated, they can eventually lead to negative results, disadvantages and difficulties in school.The exam problem
Thanks to our research in Canada and other countries we have realized that when reforms are carried out at the educational level, emphasis is usually placed on the evaluation of students through exams.
In this context, teachers and educational centers focus classes and teaching in a few specific areas, causing a more global approach to children's education to be lost. Standardized tests to assess students are also linked to higher levels of stress. in teachers and students.
The strict sense of "academic performance" (how to assess students through standardized exams in specific subject areas) is inappropriate to capture the key knowledge, skills and predispositions that children need to succeed both in the educational phase and in contemporary life.
For these reasons, those responsible for education should consider multidimensional approaches to give more responsibility to schools. For example, educational reforms are more likely to succeed when they use collective processes that take into account the opinion of educators and communities.
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In relation to these systemic and long-term problems, parents and teachers can intervene to reduce test anxiety in young children in the following ways:
1. Offering positive messages
One of the simplest and most effective ways in which parents can help fight test anxiety is through positive messages.
For example, research shows that there are positive benefits when parents encourage positive personal dialogue, offer relaxation techniques and assure children that anxiety is natural. Parents should know that experts in psychology suggest that a certain amount of stimulation is necessary to have a good performance, a state of tension in balance.
2. Maintaining open communication
It is also necessary for parents to keep open lines of communication with your children's teachers, especially because students do not necessarily show anxiety about exams in all subjects.
3. Lowering the bar
Many times parental expectations increase the pressure of students before exams, imposing additional consequences or judging the merits and abilities of a child by the results of a single test.
Instead, it is important that parents understand and also convey to their children that exams are an indicator of their performance in a specific subject and that no exam is a perfect reflection of what a student knows or is capable of doing.
Seeing the exams as a piece of information about a child's progress and seeking additional information if necessary will help parents have a better overall idea.
In Babies and moreOnce songs and tricks for children to learn spelling in a fun way4. Taking care of you
Ironically, a key aspect that both parents and teachers should consider when trying to help students with test anxiety is that they should first look for themselves.
Just as parents have to be aware of the messages they convey to their children, teachers should also care about their own well-being and avoid transmitting their own anxieties to students without realizing.
For example, a relationship has been established between the anxiety of math teachers and the anxiety of math students, which has led some researchers to explore ways to end a cycle of anxiety in math.
Similarly, teachers' concerns about the results of large-scale exams, such as at the provincial or national level, can be transmitted to students.
Fortunately, a positive aspect has been discovered among all these concerns: it is increasingly taken into account that there is a relationship between the welfare of teachers and that of students.
5. Emphasizing study techniques
Teachers can also help students overcome the stress of exams by offering ways to develop exam preparation and review techniques before important evaluations.
But it should not be confused with "teaching for exams," a practice that sacrifices the school curriculum and focuses only on the content of the exams.
What would help would be to practice study techniques such as rereading difficult questions, writing summaries to practice short answer questions and good time management on exams.
Preparing students to take exams effectively also includes teaching students about exam structures: the format of the questions, the logic behind the grading systems and the most common mistakes among the different types of questions.
In general, these techniques can be applied to any test or exam and students who have been prepared in both content and study techniques tend to show lower levels of anxiety before exams and are better able to manage their time and responses. effectively.
Not surprisingly, these types of strategies are more effective when supported by parents and caregivers.
The ideal thing would be for parents, teachers and education leaders to use their abilities to contribute to the students' success while at the same time discovering new possibilities to create more complex and intelligent forms of evaluation.
In general, we need to rethink what is important in schools and what should be evaluated.
In Babies and more The response of a Cadiz girl on an exam goes viral 10 years later Authors: Louis Volante. Professor of Education, Brock University; and Christopher DeLuca, Associate Professor in Classroom Evaluation and Interim Associate Dean, Postgraduate Studies and Research, School of Education, Queen's University, Ontario.
This article has originally been published in The Conversation. You can read the original article here.
Translated by Silvestre Urbón.
