Writing to ease Test anxiety

From a Southwest parent --

Writing about worries eases anxiety and improves test performance.
January 13, 2011

http://news.uchicago.edu/news.php?asset_id=2210

Students can combat test anxiety and improve performance by writing about their worries immediately before the exam begins, according to a University of Chicago study published in the journal Science.

Researchers found that students who were prone to test anxiety improved their high–stakes test scores by nearly one grade point after they were given 10 minutes to write about what was causing them fear, according to the article, “Writing about Testing Boosts Exam Performance in the Classroom.” The article appears in the Jan. 14 issue of Science and is based on research supported by the National Science Foundation.

The writing exercise allowed students to unload their anxieties before taking the test and accordingly freed up brainpower needed to complete the test successfully — brainpower that is normally occupied by worries about the test, explained the study’s senior author, Sian Beilock, an associate professor in psychology at the University.

In other research, Beilock has shown that pressure–filled situations can deplete a part of the brain’s processing power known as working memory, which is critical to many everyday activities. Working memory is a sort of mental scratch pad that allows people to retrieve and use information relevant to the task at hand. But it is a limited resource, and when worries creep up, the working memory people normally use to succeed becomes overburdened. That can sap the brain power necessary to excel.
Beilock is one of the nation’s leading experts on “choking under pressure” — a phenomenon in which talented people perform below their skill level when presented with a particularly challenging experience. Her recently published book, Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To, gives advice on how to avoid choking in situations ranging from high–stakes exams to important business presentations and athletic competitions.

“Despite the fact that people are often motivated to perform their best, the pressure–filled situations in which important tests, presentations and matches occur can cause people to perform below their ability level instead,” Beilock said.
Joining Beilock on the study was her graduate student Gerardo Ramirez, an Institute of Education Sciences predoctoral fellow at UChicago.

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