2008 Woodie Awards
Test Anxiety Common Among Students
Kelly Bromley/Muleskinner
Issue date: 3/1/07 Section: News
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Pop quizzes. Chapter tests. Midterms. Finals. Central students are faced with these tests repeatedly during their college careers.
Some students find these to be anxious situations.
Teresa Tatum, psychology major, decided to research this test anxiety.
"I was experiencing anxiety trying to choose a topic [for class], and I told myself to relax, and then it occurred to me to do a project on test anxiety and relaxation," Tatum said.
"Test anxiety is a specific type of fear," Professor Duane Lundervold said. "A person with high test anxiety will have a letter grade one third lower than students with low test anxiety."
Tatum discovered that there was little research done on general test anxiety. A survey over math test anxiety was found, so Tatum, with the supervision of Lundervold, took it and altered the questions for a general survey.
Last year, Tatum administered the survey to students and gave relaxation training she learned through behavioral relaxation training. She said the survey lasted about a semester-and-a-half.
"The subjects in the experimental group that received behavioral relaxation training had lower test anxiety scores," Tatum said.
Tatum is working to validate her results.
"The study will compare scores to subjective units of discomfort (SUD) ratings. SUD ratings are measures of test anxiety taken immediately before a test situation," Tatum said.
She said the results should correlate, and they are looking at depression and general anxiety as factors in the results.
Lundervold said test anxiety is widespread among college students and can be observed more frequently in students with certain majors and professions where there are classes students have to pass in order to stay in their given fields. For example, nursing students must pass anatomy and physiology in order to stay in the program.
Test anxiety can include feeling apprehensive before tests, feeling nervous, sweating, a racing heart and the fear of not doing well on the test, Lundervold said.
Some students find these to be anxious situations.
Teresa Tatum, psychology major, decided to research this test anxiety.
"I was experiencing anxiety trying to choose a topic [for class], and I told myself to relax, and then it occurred to me to do a project on test anxiety and relaxation," Tatum said.
"Test anxiety is a specific type of fear," Professor Duane Lundervold said. "A person with high test anxiety will have a letter grade one third lower than students with low test anxiety."
Tatum discovered that there was little research done on general test anxiety. A survey over math test anxiety was found, so Tatum, with the supervision of Lundervold, took it and altered the questions for a general survey.
Last year, Tatum administered the survey to students and gave relaxation training she learned through behavioral relaxation training. She said the survey lasted about a semester-and-a-half.
"The subjects in the experimental group that received behavioral relaxation training had lower test anxiety scores," Tatum said.
Tatum is working to validate her results.
"The study will compare scores to subjective units of discomfort (SUD) ratings. SUD ratings are measures of test anxiety taken immediately before a test situation," Tatum said.
She said the results should correlate, and they are looking at depression and general anxiety as factors in the results.
Lundervold said test anxiety is widespread among college students and can be observed more frequently in students with certain majors and professions where there are classes students have to pass in order to stay in their given fields. For example, nursing students must pass anatomy and physiology in order to stay in the program.
Test anxiety can include feeling apprehensive before tests, feeling nervous, sweating, a racing heart and the fear of not doing well on the test, Lundervold said.
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