Taking a test at any point in life can provide a spike in anxiety. A test environment for a student puts a lot of stress on them to perform well, and makes it difficult to properly assess the amount of knowledge they may have about a subject. So how can you help calm students down, give them confidence in their ability, and make it easier to know what they are truly capable of in the classroom?
Here we speak with FETC presenter Richard Mathy, Technology Integration Specialist at Herkimer Central Schools in New York. Mathy discusses how we can help students overcome the anxiety associated with test taking, as well as what signs to look for and the best ways to instill confidence.
Seeing the Signs
Anxiety can be a debilitating feeling for adults, but it can be much more crushing for students in their formative years. Providing ways to deal with anxiety can not only help them become better students, but it can also improve their overall outlook on life, which can have huge impacts on their higher education experience, careers, and beyond.
“The first step is you, as a teacher, understanding what is causing testing anxiety in our students,” says Mathy. “Understanding that tests are tied to performance, as well as other things like low self esteem or past trauma. If you have a starting point of understanding what the root causes are, it helps to diagnose it. You don’t walk into a doctor’s office complaining about a broken finger and they start measuring your feet. They have an idea where the pain point is.”
So knowing what your students are dealing with is key in understanding where their anxiety may start. But how can a teacher explore this understanding further?
“Having an open dialogue with the student,” says Mathy. “We will hear kids say they are going to fail. I always say that the first part of the statement isn’t the important part. The first part is belief. The second part is the important part: why do they think they’re going to fail? What is causing them to say that they are going to fail? Having that open dialogue [allows you to find out].”
Test-taking anxiety in a student may stem from one of three different factors, says Mathy.
“You have the external factors, the preparation, and the internal beliefs,” says Mathy. “When you look at the overlap, [these factors] start to come into focus. You really begin to understand what exactly causes testing anxiety.”
While there may be tools to identify what may be causing a student to struggle, which can lead to them lack confidence or have anxiety, it can’t always solve the overall issue.
“A lot of people love using [classroom tools],” says Mathy. “But they’re really just preparation tools. So if a student has an internal belief that they’re no good at tests, how does a [classroom tool] help that student? If the student is having an external factor, like they didn’t sleep last night, or they’re not eating right at home, you can be as prepared as you want going into that test…a hungry student is a hungry student at the end of the day.”
Building a rapport with your student can help you better understand what they may be dealing with at any point in time. Any number of factors might distract them from realizing their full potential during a high-stress situation.
What Can Teachers Do to Help Students in Stressful Situations?
Test taking is the first of many anxiety-riddled situations students will encounter in their lives. Properly navigating this situation can help prepare them to tackle stress in the future.
“Finding a way to break the cycle when you have an uncontrolled bad habit, a bad event,” says Mathy. “You perceive a lack of control, which causes the generalized helpless behavior. What area are you trying to attack when you have that student? Those uncontrolled bad events are, a lot of times, going to be your external factor. So if we can teach them to overcome that stuff, we can eventually have them to see that their lack of control can actually turn into control.”
Reframing bad events into something you can control can help to reverse the effects of anxiety in a student. As a teacher, guiding them down the road toward achieving this outcome can work wonders for their test-taking abilities.
“If you do one bad thing, of course you’re going to remember that ten times more than if you remember a good thing,” says Mathy. “But let’s take a second to actually congratulate ourselves for doing good things on the test.”
Another way Mathy says teachers can help boost student anxiety is through what he refers to as scaffolding tests to help steadily build confidence.
“Create a scaffolding test,” says Mathy. “Most teachers will tell you that they gave a quiz and then a test. The quiz is exactly what’s on the test. They should know it well. If it’s a preparation thing, then yes. If it’s an internal belief or an external [stressor] then they might benefit from a shorter quiz, maybe one with two choices. Once they build up their confidence, maybe throw in a third choice.”
Using scaffolding tests, turning bad situations into good ones, and celebrating success can all be effective methods of helping students combat the anxiety that comes with test taking.