Assessments may change in many ways, but for most students, the stress of having to prove what they know and can do doesn鈥檛 go away.
That鈥檚 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鈥� achievement and well-being.
鈥淧eople 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鈥� 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鈥檚 actually going on when a student stresses out over a test? While it鈥檚 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, 鈥渢he 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,鈥� 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鈥攃alled 鈥渃hoking,鈥� in the parlance of Ramirez and his colleague Sian Beilock at the University of Chicago.
Young Students 鈥楽hut Down鈥�
This choking can be particularly visible in younger students. High schoolers may respond more like adults, with irritability or sleep problems, but 鈥渋n elementary, kids just kind of shut down sometimes,鈥� said James Butler, who trains teachers in anti-stress techniques at the Austin, Texas, school district. 鈥淟ast week, there was a 4th grader who just started crying and wouldn鈥檛 write much on the test at all,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey just get overwhelmed and don鈥檛 know how to deal with it.鈥�
Interestingly, that fear response looks the same in both low- and high-performing students, Ramirez said. It doesn鈥檛 matter how much the student actually knows, but rather how well he or she 鈥渇eels they have the resources to meet the demands of the test鈥� and how tightly performance is tied to the child鈥檚 sense of identity.
For example, in a study out last month, Ramirez and colleagues found that students who saw themselves as 鈥渕ath people鈥� but performed poorly on a math test actually repressed their memories of the content of the class, similar to the 鈥渕otivated forgetting鈥� seen around traumatic events like death. The effort to block out a source of anxiety can actually make it harder to remember events and content around the event.
鈥淪o maybe you feel, 鈥楬ey, I鈥檓 supposed to be a math person, but I鈥檓 really stressed out, so maybe I鈥檓 not as big a math person as I thought I was.鈥� That stress becomes a very big threat to you,鈥� Ramirez said.
鈥淭he point of forgetting is to cope with the experience, but if the experience is tied up with a lot of the content of the class, it鈥檚 not what you want.鈥�
Join us for a discussion of what the research shows about test stress, and how the Austin, Texas, district is using mindfulness and other techniques to help students maintain a healthy approach to assessment.
Webinar: Taking the Stress From Students鈥� Tests
Take the American Psychological Association鈥檚 2013 report, 鈥淪tress in America.鈥� It
Studies have found it鈥檚 difficult to remove anxiety around tests completely, but there are ways to stop the mental choking that hurts students鈥� performance.
Ramirez and Beilock, for instance, found in a 2013 study that during the actual test, perhaps because it allowed them to focus on the fear and then put it aside. A 2011 University of Colorado at Boulder study similarly found that asking students to write about their values before a test improved performance; authors of that study noted that it could help students reinforce their sense of self outside the academic arena.
And a new study by researchers at Harvard University and the University of British Columbia found that . Students in the treatment group were trained to reinterpret physical symptoms鈥攁 racing pulse or sweaty palms, say鈥攁s signs of excitement, not fear. Those students had better test performance and lower stress than students who interpreted their symptoms as fear.
鈥淓xperiencing a sense of threat and a sense of challenge actually aren鈥檛 all that different from each other,鈥� Ramirez said. 鈥淯ltimately, by changing your interpretation, you are not going from high anxiety to low anxiety but from high anxiety to optimal anxiety.鈥�
鈥楳indful鈥� of Testing
One of the most rapidly growing methods for shifting a student鈥檚 focus is 鈥渕indfulness,鈥� a form of attention training in which students鈥攁nd sometimes teachers鈥攅ngage in breathing exercises and visualizations to improve focus and relieve stress. The method has shown evidence of promise in reducing anxiety and behavior problems in children and adolescents in both the United States and other countries. But most of the studies to date have involved relatively small groups of children who have not been randomly assigned to the interventions.
An released in March by the nonprofit Campbell Collaboration found small but statistically significant improvements in students鈥� cognitive and emotional outcomes but no significant improvements for academics. The Norway-based authors cautioned that schools should evaluate the programs if they use them in class.
鈥淢indfulness is in; it鈥檚 expanding a lot, but ... sometimes, the excitement about these things gets way ahead of the evidence of its effectiveness,鈥� Penn State鈥檚 Greenberg said. Yet, he said most anti-stress programs, including his own, involve at least some aspects of mindfulness, such as breathing exercises and students learning to identify their emotions.
鈥淚f [students] learn to just watch your own anxiety and see that it gets stronger and weaker鈥攏ot to push the emotion away but just to notice it鈥攜ou can surf the waves of anxiety,鈥� Greenberg said.
James Butler is one of those trying to help students ride those waves. A former teacher of the year in the Austin district, he has become the school system鈥檚 first mindfulness director.
Butler and others in the district鈥檚 social-emotional-learning department train both teachers and students to recognize their physical and emotional symptoms of stress and understand how they could affect their thoughts in the lead-up to a test.
鈥淭he way I approach mindfulness is from a very educational perspective; we鈥檙e very explicit about the neuroscience of the brain,鈥� he said.
鈥淚 like to focus on very simple, easy techniques, like just taking three deep breaths鈥� before a test, he said. With young children, he has them time their inhalations and exhalations by tracing the fingers of one hand with the other, both to help them count and to give tactile feedback. The exercises are designed so that teachers can lead their class through them in just a few minutes a day during class transitions.
鈥淚f a teacher is practicing mindfulness with their class consistently, it鈥檚 more of a seamless transition ... something that they will naturally do during a test.鈥�
Two summers ago, Butler wrote 鈥淢indful Classrooms,鈥� a 36-week curriculum covering research on how stress affects the brain and detailing the exercises he had done with his own kindergarten class for several years. Austin Superintendent Paul Cruz gave Butler the green light to pilot the curriculum in 2015-16 with 20 teachers, and it has since expanded to 400 teachers in 130 schools districtwide.
On an annual survey of classroom climate, average scores of district teachers in the pilot more than doubled after participating in the program. The results were only self-reported but positive enough that the district plans to conduct a quantitative evaluation of the program next year.
