{"id":20,"date":"2016-01-11T09:16:02","date_gmt":"2016-01-11T16:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/inquirychefmike\/?page_id=20"},"modified":"2016-01-13T14:03:39","modified_gmt":"2016-01-13T21:03:39","slug":"going-further","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/inquirychefmike\/going-further\/","title":{"rendered":"Going Further"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 class=\"yt watch-title-container\"><span id=\"eow-title\" class=\"watch-title \" dir=\"ltr\" title=\"Mr. Bean - The Exam\">Mr. Bean &#8211; The Exam<\/span><\/h1>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Exam | Mr. Bean Official\" width=\"604\" height=\"340\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9LhLjpsstPY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Test anxiety: Why it is increasing and 3 ways to curb it<\/span>\u00a0 &#8211;\u00a0The Washington Post \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>While one might imagine writing about a looming exam would only heighten students\u2019 anxiety, Beilock says the opposite was the case. \u201cWriting about their worries had the effect of \u2018offloading\u2019 them onto the page, so that the students had more cognitive horsepower available to apply to solving problems on the test,\u201d she explains. For both groups, Beilock and Ramirez reported in <em>Science<\/em>, \u201cone short writing intervention that brings testing pressures to the forefront enhances the likelihood of excelling, rather than failing, under pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. Affirm your values.<\/strong> Apprehension over tests can be especially common among minority and female students. That\u2019s because the prospect of evaluation poses for them what psychologists call \u201cstereotype threat\u201d\u2014the possibility that a poor performance will confirm negative assumptions about the group to which they belong (among the specious, anxiety-inducing tropes: girls can\u2019t excel in math and science; blacks and Latinos aren\u2019t college material). This additional layer of anxiety can lead such students to perform below the level they are capable of. \u201cGirls, and black and Latino students, are often dealing with a double dose of test anxiety,\u201d says Stanford University psychologist Gregory Walton. \u201cThe nervousness everyone feels when they\u2019re being evaluated, plus the worry\u2014conscious or not\u2014that a poor performance will prove that the negative assumption about their group is correct.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Walton\u2019s colleague at Stanford, psychology professor Geoffrey Cohen, devised an intervention aimed at reducing stereotype threat. Like the exercise designed by Beilock and Ramirez, it asks students to write briefly, but in this case participants are instructed to choose something they value and write about why it matters to them. \u201cMusic is important to me because it gives me a way to express myself when I\u2019m mad, happy, or sad,\u201d one participant wrote. In one study, this \u201cvalues affirmation\u201d exercise was shown to shrink the performance gap between white and black students by 40 percent. In another, it erased the gap in test scores between women and men enrolled in a challenging college physics course, raising the women\u2019s average grade from a C to a B (higher than the average male student\u2019s grade).<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. Engage in relaxation exercises. <\/strong>Younger kids aren\u2019t immune from test anxiety. As early as first and second grade, researchers see evidence of anxiety about testing. Their worries tend to manifest in non-verbal signs that adults may miss, says psychologist Heidi Larson: stomachaches, difficulty sleeping, and a persistent urge to leave the classroom to go to the bathroom. \u201cI had one mother tell me that her son had no problem with tests,\u201d recalls Larson, a professor of counseling and student development at Eastern Illinois University. \u201cThen a week later she came back and said that her son had burst into tears the night before the big end-of-year exam, saying that he was afraid he wouldn\u2019t be promoted to the next grade.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Larson designed an intervention especially for younger students, involving breathing and relaxation exercises, and examined its effectiveness on a group of third-graders. \u201cWe had students lie on mats on the floor of their classrooms. They closed their eyes and we asked them to focus on their breathing, then on tensing and relaxing groups of muscles in their legs, arms, stomachs and so on,\u201d Larson recounts. \u201cSome of the kids became so relaxed they fell asleep!\u201d A control group of students at another school received no such training. The study, which was published in the Journal of School Counseling in 2010, reported that the relaxation intervention had \u201ca significant effect in reducing test anxiety.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Test anxiety is a psychological condition that involves severe distress before, during and\/or after an exam, making it impossible for them to do their best work. It\u2019s not clear exactly how many students have it but severe test anxiety could afflict as much as 20 percent of the school-going population, according to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amtaa.org\/\">American Test Anxiety Association<\/a>,\u00a0 and another 18 percent may have a moderate form of the condition.<\/p>\n<p>What is there to do about it? Here are some tips from <a href=\"http:\/\/anniemurphypaul.com\/about\/\">Annie Murphy Paul,<\/a> a book author, magazine journalist, consultant and speaker who helps people understand how we learn and how we can do it better. She is a contributing writer\u00a0 for Time magazine, writes a weekly column about learning for Time.com, blogs about learning for a number of websites and contributes to various publications.\u00a0 She is the author of \u201cThe Cult of Personality,\u201d a cultural history and scientific critique of personality tests, and of \u201cOrigins,\u201d a book about the science of prenatal influences. She is now at work on \u201cBrilliant: The New Science of Smart,\u201d to be published this year. This post appeared<a href=\"http:\/\/anniemurphypaul.com\/2013\/01\/great-debate-why-arguing-is-the-best-way-to-learn\/?utm_source=Brilliant%3A+The+New+Science+of+Smart+Newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=97e2052629-Brilliant_Report_16_1_2012&amp;utm_medium=email#\"> on The Brilliant Blog.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>By Annie Murphy Paul<\/p>\n<p><em>In the<a href=\"http:\/\/www.time.com\/time\/magazine\/article\/0,9171,2135124,00.html\"> February 11 issue of <\/a><\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.time.com\/time\/magazine\/article\/0,9171,2135124,00.html\">Time<\/a><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.time.com\/time\/magazine\/article\/0,9171,2135124,00.html\"> magazine<\/a>, I have an article about test anxiety\u2014the nervousness that many of us feel when confronted with an exam\u2014and the techniques that psychologists have developed to get rid of it. Here, some insights adapted from that article:<\/em><\/p>\n<p>As any parent or teacher knows, tests can create crippling anxiety in students\u2013and anxious kids can perform below their true abilities. But new research in cognitive science and psychology is giving us a clearer understanding of the link between stress and performance, and allowing experts to develop specific strategies for helping kids manage their fears. These potential solutions are reasonably simple, inexpensive and, as recent studies show, effective. Some work for a broad range of students, while others target specific groups. Yet they\u2019re unfamiliar to many teachers and parents, who remain unaware that test anxiety can be so easily relieved. Here, three such approaches:<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Unload on paper. <\/strong>When students feel nervous, their capacity to think clearly and solve problems accurately is reduced, says Sian Beilock, a cognitive scientist at the University of Chicago. Students taking an exam must draw on their working memory, the mental holding space where we manipulate facts and ideas. \u201cWhen students are anxious, their worries use up some of their working memory, leaving fewer cognitive resources to devote to the test,\u201d Beilock explains. One method recently tested successfully by Beilock and a colleague, Gerardo Ramirez, had students spend ten minutes writing about their thoughts and feelings immediately before taking a test. The practice, called \u201cexpressive writing,\u201d is used by psychologists to reduce negative thoughts in people with depression. They tried the intervention on college students placed in a testing situation in Beilock\u2019s lab, and in an actual Chicago school, where ninth-grade students engaged in the writing exercise before their first high school final. In both cases, students\u2019 test scores \u201csignificantly improved,\u201d according to an article they published last year in the journal <em>Science<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>While one might imagine writing about a looming exam would only heighten students\u2019 anxiety, Beilock says the opposite was the case. \u201cWriting about their worries had the effect of \u2018offloading\u2019 them onto the page, so that the students had more cognitive horsepower available to apply to solving problems on the test,\u201d she explains. For both groups, Beilock and Ramirez reported in <em>Science<\/em>, \u201cone short writing intervention that brings testing pressures to the forefront enhances the likelihood of excelling, rather than failing, under pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. Affirm your values.<\/strong> Apprehension over tests can be especially common among minority and female students. That\u2019s because the prospect of evaluation poses for them what psychologists call \u201cstereotype threat\u201d\u2014the possibility that a poor performance will confirm negative assumptions about the group to which they belong (among the specious, anxiety-inducing tropes: girls can\u2019t excel in math and science; blacks and Latinos aren\u2019t college material). This additional layer of anxiety can lead such students to perform below the level they are capable of. \u201cGirls, and black and Latino students, are often dealing with a double dose of test anxiety,\u201d says Stanford University psychologist Gregory Walton. \u201cThe nervousness everyone feels when they\u2019re being evaluated, plus the worry\u2014conscious or not\u2014that a poor performance will prove that the negative assumption about their group is correct.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Walton\u2019s colleague at Stanford, psychology professor Geoffrey Cohen, devised an intervention aimed at reducing stereotype threat. Like the exercise designed by Beilock and Ramirez, it asks students to write briefly, but in this case participants are instructed to choose something they value and write about why it matters to them. \u201cMusic is important to me because it gives me a way to express myself when I\u2019m mad, happy, or sad,\u201d one participant wrote. In one study, this \u201cvalues affirmation\u201d exercise was shown to shrink the performance gap between white and black students by 40 percent. In another, it erased the gap in test scores between women and men enrolled in a challenging college physics course, raising the women\u2019s average grade from a C to a B (higher than the average male student\u2019s grade).<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. Engage in relaxation exercises. <\/strong>Younger kids aren\u2019t immune from test anxiety. As early as first and second grade, researchers see evidence of anxiety about testing. Their worries tend to manifest in non-verbal signs that adults may miss, says psychologist Heidi Larson: stomachaches, difficulty sleeping, and a persistent urge to leave the classroom to go to the bathroom. \u201cI had one mother tell me that her son had no problem with tests,\u201d recalls Larson, a professor of counseling and student development at Eastern Illinois University. \u201cThen a week later she came back and said that her son had burst into tears the night before the big end-of-year exam, saying that he was afraid he wouldn\u2019t be promoted to the next grade.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Larson designed an intervention especially for younger students, involving breathing and relaxation exercises, and examined its effectiveness on a group of third-graders. \u201cWe had students lie on mats on the floor of their classrooms. They closed their eyes and we asked them to focus on their breathing, then on tensing and relaxing groups of muscles in their legs, arms, stomachs and so on,\u201d Larson recounts. \u201cSome of the kids became so relaxed they fell asleep!\u201d A control group of students at another school received no such training. The study, which was published in the Journal of School Counseling in 2010, reported that the relaxation intervention had \u201ca significant effect in reducing test anxiety.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mr. Bean &#8211; The Exam &nbsp; Test anxiety: Why it is increasing and 3 ways to curb it\u00a0 &#8211;\u00a0The Washington Post \u00a0\u00a0 While one might imagine writing about a looming exam would only heighten students\u2019 anxiety, Beilock says the opposite was the case. \u201cWriting about their worries had the effect of \u2018offloading\u2019 them onto the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34597,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-20","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/inquirychefmike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/inquirychefmike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/inquirychefmike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/inquirychefmike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34597"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/inquirychefmike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/inquirychefmike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/20\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/inquirychefmike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/20\/revisions\/70"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/inquirychefmike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}