Can Test Anxiety Interventions Alleviate a Gender Gap in an Undergraduate STEM Course?

Abstract

Gender gaps in exam scores or final grades are common in introductory college science and engineering classrooms, with women underperforming relative to men with the same admission test scores or college grade point averages. After failing to close a historically documented gender gap in a large introductory biology course using interventions targeted at training a growth mindset, we implemented interventions designed to reduce student test anxiety. We combined evidence-based exercises based on expressive writing and on reappraising physiological arousal. We also used a valid measure to quantify test anxiety at the start and end of the course. This instrument measures an individual’s self-declared or perceived test anxiety—also called trait anxiety—but not the immediate or “state” anxiety experienced during an actual exam. Consistent with previous reports in the literature, we found that women in this population declared much higher test anxiety than men and that students who declared higher test anxiety had lower exam scores than students who declared lower test anxiety. Although the test anxiety interventions had no impact on the level of self-declared trait anxiety, they did significantly increase student exam performance. The treatment benefits occurred in both men and women. These data suggest that 1) a combination of interventions based on expressive writing and reappraising physiological arousal can be a relatively easy manner to boost exam performance in a large-enrollment science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) course and encourage emotion regulation; 2) women are more willing than men to declare that they are anxious about exams, but men and women may actually experience the same level of anxiety during the exam itself; and 3) women are underperforming in STEM courses for reasons other than gender-based differences in mindset or test anxiety.

Exploring the contributions of self-efficacy and test anxiety to gender differences in assessments

“…It could be that women do not actually experience more anxiety during tests even though they report it on the survey; this discrepancy has been demonstrated in a math context [30]. Our results echo those of a recent study on a test-anxiety intervention in an introductory biology course, which found that "women are underperforming in STEM courses for reasons other than ... test anxiety" [31].…”

Instructor strategies to alleviate student stress and anxiety in colleges and universities

“…Similarly, several studies on stress reappraisal, the guiding of students to perceive stress and anxiety as beneficial given the possibility of increased focus and attention, have also been shown to both decrease anxiety and increase exam performance (Jamieson, Mendes, & Nock, 2013;Jamieson, Peters, Greenwood, & Altose, 2016). In sum, these interventions have been shown to increase student performance for all students, including both low-and high-anxiety students (Harris et al, 2019). Instructors can either implement these interventions, or let students know of the relevant research, if they struggle with testing anxiety.…”

“…Instructors can either implement these interventions, or let students know of the relevant research, if they struggle with testing anxiety. Similarly, instructors can use published interventions relating to these themes that have been successfully implemented in a variety of courses (Doherty & Wenderoth, 2017;Harris et al, 2019). Finally, there are also a number of more general interventions that instructors can promote to lower stress, such as providing access to dogs prior to an exam (Barker, Barker, McCain, & Schubert, 2016;Jarolmen & Patel, 2018;McDonald, McDonald, & Roberts, 2017;Schroder et al, 2017;Trammell, 2017), or encouraging students to attend mindfulness and meditation classes (Bamber & Kraenzle Schneider, 2016).…”

Gender gaps in the performance of Norwegian biology students: the roles of test anxiety and science confidence

“…Significantly, test anxiety may not be felt equally by all students, and its impacts may vary by student characteristics. Studies in the USA indicate that underrepresented minority and female students in STEM courses exhibit more test anxiety than do their nonminority or male counterparts (Payne, Smith and Payne, 1983;Hembree, 1988;Cassady and Johnson, 2002;Chapell et al, 2005;Ballen, Wieman, Salehi, Searle and Zamudio, 2017;von der Embse et al, 2018;Harris et al, 2019). Further, Ballen, Salehi and Cotner (2017) and Salehi et al (2019) have demonstrated that test anxiety in women-but not in men-is negatively and significantly associated with performance on exams, possibly explaining some of the performance gaps that have been documented in STEM fields (e.g., Koester, Grom and McKay, 2016;Matz et al, 2017).…”

“…Further, Ballen, Salehi and Cotner (2017) and Salehi et al (2019) have demonstrated that test anxiety in women-but not in men-is negatively and significantly associated with performance on exams, possibly explaining some of the performance gaps that have been documented in STEM fields (e.g., Koester, Grom and McKay, 2016;Matz et al, 2017). Harris et al (2019) found nominal gender differences in reported test anxiety and no gender-specific effect of test anxiety on performance in a large biology class, but there was no gender gap in performance in the class under study, and hence no problem to be solved.…”