{"id":4185,"date":"2019-01-25T08:00:40","date_gmt":"2019-01-25T13:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=4185"},"modified":"2019-01-24T20:58:44","modified_gmt":"2019-01-25T01:58:44","slug":"two-helpful-strategies-to-lessen-exam-stresses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/two-helpful-strategies-to-lessen-exam-stresses\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Helpful Strategies to Lessen Exam Stresses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Exam stress<\/strong> bothers many of our students. Sadly, it hinders students from lower socio-economic status (SES) families even more.<\/p>\n

As a result, these students struggle — especially in STEM classes. And, \"exam<\/a>this struggle makes it harder for them to enter these important (and lucrative!) fields.<\/p>\n

Can we break this cycle somehow?<\/p>\n

Reducing Exam Stress: Two Approaches<\/h2>\n

Christopher Rozek tried a combination of strategies<\/a> to help lower-SES science students manage exam stress.<\/p>\n

This research stands out for a number of reasons: in particular, it included a large sample (almost 1200 students). And, it took place in a school, not a psychology lab. That is, his results apply to the “real world,” not just a hermetically sealed research space.<\/p>\n

Rozek worked with students taking a 9th grade biology class. Before they took the two exams in the course, Rozek had students write for ten minutes.<\/p>\n

One group spent their ten minutes writing about their current thoughts and feelings. This approach lets students “dump” their anxiety, and has been effective in earlier studies<\/a>. (By the way: this earlier research is controversial. I’ve written about that controversy here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Another group read a brief article showing that the right amount of stress can enhance<\/em> performance. This reading, and the writing they did about it, helps students “reappraise” the stress they feel.<\/p>\n

A third group did shortened versions of both “dumping” and “reappraising” exercises.<\/p>\n

And the control group read and wrote about the importance of ignoring and suppressing<\/em> negative\/stressful emotions.<\/p>\n

So, did the “dump” strategy or the “reappraise” strategy help?<\/p>\n

Dramatic Results<\/h2>\n

Indeed, they both did.<\/p>\n

For example, Rozek and Co. measured the effect these strategies (alone or together) had on the exam-score gap between high- and low-SES students.<\/p>\n

The result? They cut the gap by 29%.<\/p>\n

Rozek also tracked course failure. Among low-SES students, these strategies cut the failure rate by 50%.<\/p>\n

(In the control group, 36% of the low SES students failed the class; in the other three groups, that rate fell to 18%. Of course, 18% is high — but it’s dramatically lower than 36%.)<\/p>\n

In his final measure, Rozek found that — after these interventions — low SES-students evaluated their stress much more like the high SES-students. The gap between these ratings fell…by 81%.<\/p>\n

All this progress from a 10 minute writing exercise.<\/p>\n

Classroom Guidance to Reduce Exam Stress<\/h2>\n

If you’ve got students who are likely to feel higher levels of anxiety before a test, you might adapt either (or both) of these strategies for your students.<\/p>\n

The best way to make these strategies work will vary depending on your students’ age and academic experience.<\/p>\n

You might start by reviewing Rozek’s research — click the link above, and look for the “Procedure” section on page 5. From there, use your teacherly wisdom to make those procedures fit your students, your classroom, and you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exam stress bothers many of our students. Sadly, it hinders students from lower socio-economic status (SES) families even more. As a result, these students struggle — especially in STEM classes. And, this struggle makes it harder for them to enter these important (and lucrative!) fields. Can we break this cycle somehow? Reducing Exam Stress: Two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":4189,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15,32,74],"class_list":["post-4185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-classroom-advice","tag-stem","tag-stress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4185"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4231,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4185\/revisions\/4231"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}