Writing About Testing Worries Boosts Exam Performance in the Classroom

By Gerardo Ramirez and Sian L. Beilock

Department of Psychology and Committee on Education, University of Chicago

Abstract

Two laboratory and two randomized field experiments tested a psychological intervention designed to improve students’ scores on high-stakes exams and to increase our understanding of why pressure-filled exam situations undermine some students’ performance.

We expected that sitting for an important exam leads to worries about the situation and its consequences that undermine test performance.

We tested whether having students write down their thoughts about an upcoming test could improve test performance.

The intervention, a brief expressive writing assignment that occurred immediately before taking an important test, significantly improved students’ exam scores, especially for students habitually anxious about test taking.

Simply writing about one’s worries before a high-stakes exam can boost test scores.

For many students, the desire to perform their best in academics is strong.

Consequences for poor performance, especially on exams, include poor evaluations by mentors, teachers, and peers; lost scholarships; and relinquished educational opportunities.

Yet despite the fact that students are often motivated to perform their best, the pressure-filled situations in which important tests occur can cause students to perform below their ability instead (1).

The expression “choking under pressure” is used to describe what happens when people perform more poorly than expected given their skill level when there are large incentives for optimal performance and negative consequences for poor performance (2).

Choking is a serious problem given that poor exam performance affects students’ subsequent academic opportunities. It also limits potentially qualified students from participating in the talent pool tapped to fill advanced jobs in disciplines where the workforce is dwindling [e.g., science, technology, engineering, and mathematics workforce in the United States (3)].

Here we demonstrate how a 10-min. pre-exam intervention, derived from psychological theories of stress and performance, can prevent choking and enhance exam scores, particularly for students who habitually become anxious in testing situations.

Several studies have shown that, when students feel an anxious desire to perform at a high level [i.e., performance pressure (4)], they worry about the situation and its consequences (5, 6).

These worries compete for the working memory (WM) available for performance. WM is a short-term memory system involved in the control and regulation of a limited amount of information immediately relevant to the task at hand (7). If the ability of WM to maintain task focus is disrupted because of situation-related worries, performance can suffer (8). …

We demonstrate that a short expressive writing intervention reduces performance deficits commonly associated with high-pressure testing situations. The benefits of expressive writing are especially apparent for students who are habitually anxious about taking tests.

Expressive writing eliminates the relation commonly seen between test anxiety and poor test performance.

Moreover, it is not any writing that benefits performance, but expressing worries about an upcoming high-pressure situation that accounts for enhanced exam scores under pressure.

Continued in article from Science 14 January 2011:  Writing About Testing Worries Boosts Exam Performance in the Classroom

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