Reappraising Stress Arousal Improves Performance and Reduces Evaluation Anxiety in Classroom Exam Situations

Abstract

For students to thrive in the U.S. educational system, they must successfully cope with omnipresent demands of exams. Nearly all students experience testing situations as stressful, and signs of stress (e.g., racing heart) are typically perceived negatively. This research tested the efficacy of a psychosituational intervention targeting cognitive appraisals of stress to improve classroom exam performance. Ninety-three students (across five semesters) enrolled in a community college developmental mathematics course were randomly assigned to stress reappraisal or placebo control conditions. Reappraisal instructions educated students about the adaptive benefits of stress arousal, whereas placebo materials instructed students to ignore stress. Reappraisal students reported less math evaluation anxiety and exhibited improved math exam performance relative to controls. Mediation analysis indicated reappraisal improved performance by increasing students’ perceptions of their ability to cope with the stressful testing situation (resource appraisals). Implications for theory development and policy are discussed.

The Influence of Emotional Intelligence on Resilience, Test Anxiety, Academic Stress and the Mediterranean Diet. A Study with University Students

“…On some occasions, students present a series of emotional reactions that can trigger disinhibition in the face of an exam, damaging their performance during the exam [29]. This negative emotional reaction is understood as anxiety, which is an unpleasant emotional reaction produced by an external stimulus, and is considered by the individual as threatening and thus producing physiological and behavioral changes in the subject before the exams [30]. Tuma and Maser [31] define anxiety as a state that is characterized by the presence of feelings of apprehension, where uncertainty and tension arises as a result of the subject anticipating a real or imaginary threat.…”

An Entity Theory of Intelligence Predicts Higher Cortisol Levels When High School Grades Are Declining

“…Second, past research grounded in the BPS model of challenge and threat has most frequently studied situation-specific or acute stress processes in targeted motivated-performance situations (e.g., classroom mathematics exams; Jamieson, Peters, Greenwood, & Altose, 2016;John-Henderson, Rheinschmidt, & Mendoza-Denton, 2015). However, less research has examined whether situation-general belief systems, such as implicit theories of intelligence can differentially predict appraisals and physiological responses (for exceptions, see Chen, Langer, Raphaelson, & Matthews, 2004;Crum et al, 2013).…”

Improving Student Outcomes in Higher Education: The Science of Targeted Intervention

“… 1 Several other promising interventions have not (yet) been tested in multiple studies and are therefore not included: Acee & Weinstein’s (2010) and Yeager and colleagues’ (2014) task value interventions; Landau and colleagues’ (2014), Jamieson and colleagues’ (2016), and Browman & Destin’s (2016) framing interventions; and Kizilcec and colleagues’ (2017) intervention, which is a hybrid of task value and personal values interventions. In addition, two studies in our review also contain tests of interventions not (yet) tested in multiple studies: Yeager and colleagues’ (2016) critical feedback and cultural fit interventions andWalton and colleagues’ (2015) affirmation training intervention are not included in this review.…”