After doing several workshops for students planning to take the CUNY Proficiency Exam (CPE) I’ve been thinking about some fairly basic questions about standardized testing that are nonetheless important ones. I’ve come to realize (as have other Fellows at Baruch) that one of the most important functions of these workshops is to alleviate student anxiety. While some students do not seem to worry too much about the exam, many (some of them excellent students) become rather anxious especially in regards to the time constraints. This raises a number of questions for me regarding the effectiveness of this form of assessment. Are we really setting up a situation that accurately measures student performance of these skills given the stress of the testing situation? According to this article, we aren’t.
As health blogger Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen points out, “Scientists have long known that long-term stress impairs brain cell communication, but they’re just now learning that even short-term stress – such as a few hours of anxiety – can negatively affect cognitive skills.” Pawlik-Kienlen cites research from the University of California (Irvine) School of Medicine as well as the Laboratory of Stress Research at Douglas Hospital Research Center to make this point. Given this negative affect of stress on memory it would seem that we are setting up students for failure. Of course, it could be argued that the anxiety-producing test situation is preparation for stress soon to be experienced by students in the work world. If this were the case, why wouldn’t we coach students on ways to manage this type of stress early in their educational careers? In general I understand the need for assessment of student learning; however, I wonder if it isn’t time for us to start thinking about some different ways of accomplishing this goal outside of the traditional timed exam.
And, to add to all these interesting questions: does anyone have any specific suggestions to pass on to students about alleviating their test and presentation stress?
This has come up in my speech rehearsal meetings: students want to know how to deal with their performance anxiety. I told them to visualize themselves giving a calm and competent speech, and remember to breathe slowly when the time comes. Also, I told them that it’s okay to be nervous, since adrenaline can sharpen a person’s mental acuity. But the truth is, I’ve been a student and a teacher for so long, I sort of forget what it’s like to be nervous before a test or speech.
Own it! Own those jitters! That’s my locker-room speech.
I still get nervous, in front of a class and before a test! I tell students to remember that nerves are a part of it– so try not to take nervousness as a invitation to worry about specific insecurities and doubts. The best actors have terrible stage fright. Basically, realize nerves are part of the project, they don’t signal anything about your capability. Some of my students who are athletes have been really helpful with this too, they’ve described how they still get nervous before a game, they’ve just gotten used to it and now it becomes a part of the whole event. The amount of practice and even mastery doesn’t make much different for many of us. Then again, I heard a talk by Siri Hustvedt about how she shook while speaking in public, and now takes beta blockers before every speech.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124239322
It’s funny–I have a very different response to the CPE exam. I thought of the wide range of writing and comprehensive skills in freshman I’ve met at Baruch, and I was really glad to see that the exam requires a certain level of critical thinking, which I think it tests well…and I want Baruch students to be able to do this well, even under some stress. I guess what I’m saying is, managing to keep focused under some stress seems like a good skill to have.