Some districts are taking steps to help students better cope with test anxiety and other stresses of school
In Education Week
May 24, 2017
Assessments may change in many ways, but for most students, the stress of having to prove what they know and can do doesn't go away.
That's why an increasing number of districts nationwide are looking for ways to help change not so much the tests but the way students respond to them, and to do so in a way that helps improve students' achievement and well-being."People who are anxious in general often get test anxiety, yes, but a lot of people who are not particularly anxious can still develop stress around tests in different subjects" like mathematics, said Mark Greenberg, the chairman of prevention research at Pennsylvania State University and a developer of the Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies, or PATHS, curriculum, a social and emotional development and anti-anxiety program for elementary students.
What's actually going on when a student stresses out over a test? While it's a common occurrence, researchers are starting to get new perspective on exactly how fear interferes with performance.
In the moment an anxious student begins a test, "the mind becomes flooded with concerns about the possibility of failure. And these worries essentially create a competition for attention between the worries and [the] need to solve the problems on the test," said Gerardo Ramirez, an assistant professor in developmental and cognitive psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. That divided attention leads to a stalemate—called "choking," in the parlance of Ramirez and his colleague Sian Beilock at the University of Chicago.
Young Students 'Shut Down'
This choking can be particularly visible in younger students. High schoolers may respond more like adults, with irritability or sleep problems, but "in elementary, kids just kind of shut down sometimes," said James Butler, who trains teachers in anti-stress techniques at the Austin, Texas, school district. "Last week, there was a 4th grader who just started crying and wouldn't write much on the test at all," he said. "They just get overwhelmed and don't know how to deal with it."
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