I had some students complaining about test-taking anxiety! One guy came in and solved the last midterm problem 5 minutes after he had turned in the exam, so I think this is a real thing. One girl said that calling it something that’s not “exam” made her perform better. However, it seems like none of them had ever really confronted the problem? They just sort of take tests and go “Oh yeah, I should have gotten that. I’m bad at taking tests.”
Have any of you guys experienced this? If so, have you tried to tackle it head-on? It seems like there should be a handy tool-box of things to do when experiencing anxiety during a test. I personally don’t have this problem, so I have no idea. (I get a little nervous and take a minute to breathe and I’m fine. And avoid drinking coffee on exam days!)
Is this meant to imply that you didn’t previously think this is a real thing or that you hadn’t heard of it until now? It’s apparently a well-studied phenomenon, I think I know people who experience it, and it’s completely consistent with my current model of human psychology.
Nono, I believed it. I just didn’t want people commenting “your students are just complaining to weasel out a better grade from you,” because I had some people telling me that students sometimes try to befriend TA’s and suck up to them. Though I guess it’s not that relevant that these particular students had it. I was just surprised at how bad it was. It’s almost like as soon as the test is over, you can think again? I sorta figured people would seek treatment for something that serious.
I think there’s a double typical mind fallacy here. You were surprised because your mind doesn’t work their way, and it doesn’t occur to them to do anything about it because they just think that’s what tests feel like. Also, an anxiety disorder is tantamount to a mild mental illness, and people still have a lot of hangups about seeking mental health services in general.
Yeah, I think you’re right because when when people say they get nervous before tests, I think, “Oh sure, I get nervous too!” But not to the point where I spend half the time sitting there, unable to write anything down.
I’m a bit concerned that a lot of the treatment options on that page are drugs. Is it really safe to drug people before their brain is supposed to do mathy things? Is it cheating? Do any of the people you know have any handy CBT-style rituals that help calm them down? I think from now on I’m also going to persuade professors to call exams “quizzes” or something.
I’m a bit concerned that a lot of the treatment options on that page are drugs. Is it really safe to drug people before their brain is supposed to do mathy things?
Probably not more unsafe than drugging them other times. As for performance… most anxiolytic substances impair mental function somewhat. It’s what they are notorious for (ie. Valium and ethanol). Still, the effects aren’t strong enough that crippling anxiety wouldn’t be worse. On the other hand a few things like phenibut and aniracetam could lead to somewhat increased performance even beside from anxiolytic effects.
Is it cheating?
No. There isn’t (usually) a rule against it so it isn’t cheating. (Sometimes there are laws against prescription substances, but that is different. That makes you a criminal not a cheater!)
I guess I understand using drugs for other mental disorders (the persistent ones that interfere with more areas of life) but it weirds me out that we create this bizarre social construct called “tests” that give people crippling anxiety … and then we solve the problem with drugs. Instead of developing alternative models for testing people. (Although there are probably correlations and people with test anxiety might get it for other things as well?)
I think this has to do with the difference between work and curiosity mode. In curiosity mode solving problems is much easier, but stress reliably kills it. Once the stress is gone, the answers come pouring out.
It’s extremely common with certain learning disabilities, like dyslexia and to a lesser extent dyscalculia. For many people, it’s the time limit, rather than the seriousness of the task itself, and eliminating the time limit to take the test permits them to finish it without issue (frequently within the time limit!).
In the class I TA for, the students can go to the professor’s office hours after the midterm / final, and if they can solve the problem there, they still get… half of the points? I wonder how that one affects test-taking performance.
Also, this whole thing seems to be annoyingly resistant to Bayesian updates… “Every time I’m anxious I perform bad, and now I’m worried about being too worried for this exam”, and, since performing bad is a very valid prediction in this state of mind, worry is there to stay.
Maybe if the tests are called “quizzes” the students end up in the other stable state of “not being worried”?
I feel like it’s the students’ responsibility to calibrate their own personal correct amount of worry that it takes to make them study, regardless of what the thing is called? (Like if I say “This quiz is worth 50% of your grade,” they should be able to tell that it’s not really a quiz.) But at the same time, it sounds like some brains have this worry horizon where once they start worrying, then it’s all they can do. So we need to somehow calibrate the scariness of exams so that only a very small percentage of people fall off the worry horizon, because people who fail from not studying can just start studying. The stable state of not being worried is a good place! ^_^
This kind of reminds me of all of the (non-technical) articles about game addiction and how it’s in the designers’ best interest to keep everyone hooked but still high-functioning enough that we won’t outlaw WoW the way we outlaw harmful, addictive narcotics.
I had some students complaining about test-taking anxiety! One guy came in and solved the last midterm problem 5 minutes after he had turned in the exam, so I think this is a real thing. One girl said that calling it something that’s not “exam” made her perform better. However, it seems like none of them had ever really confronted the problem? They just sort of take tests and go “Oh yeah, I should have gotten that. I’m bad at taking tests.”
Have any of you guys experienced this? If so, have you tried to tackle it head-on? It seems like there should be a handy tool-box of things to do when experiencing anxiety during a test. I personally don’t have this problem, so I have no idea. (I get a little nervous and take a minute to breathe and I’m fine. And avoid drinking coffee on exam days!)
Is this meant to imply that you didn’t previously think this is a real thing or that you hadn’t heard of it until now? It’s apparently a well-studied phenomenon, I think I know people who experience it, and it’s completely consistent with my current model of human psychology.
Nono, I believed it. I just didn’t want people commenting “your students are just complaining to weasel out a better grade from you,” because I had some people telling me that students sometimes try to befriend TA’s and suck up to them. Though I guess it’s not that relevant that these particular students had it. I was just surprised at how bad it was. It’s almost like as soon as the test is over, you can think again? I sorta figured people would seek treatment for something that serious.
I think there’s a double typical mind fallacy here. You were surprised because your mind doesn’t work their way, and it doesn’t occur to them to do anything about it because they just think that’s what tests feel like. Also, an anxiety disorder is tantamount to a mild mental illness, and people still have a lot of hangups about seeking mental health services in general.
Yeah, I think you’re right because when when people say they get nervous before tests, I think, “Oh sure, I get nervous too!” But not to the point where I spend half the time sitting there, unable to write anything down.
I’m a bit concerned that a lot of the treatment options on that page are drugs. Is it really safe to drug people before their brain is supposed to do mathy things? Is it cheating? Do any of the people you know have any handy CBT-style rituals that help calm them down? I think from now on I’m also going to persuade professors to call exams “quizzes” or something.
Probably not more unsafe than drugging them other times. As for performance… most anxiolytic substances impair mental function somewhat. It’s what they are notorious for (ie. Valium and ethanol). Still, the effects aren’t strong enough that crippling anxiety wouldn’t be worse. On the other hand a few things like phenibut and aniracetam could lead to somewhat increased performance even beside from anxiolytic effects.
No. There isn’t (usually) a rule against it so it isn’t cheating. (Sometimes there are laws against prescription substances, but that is different. That makes you a criminal not a cheater!)
I guess I understand using drugs for other mental disorders (the persistent ones that interfere with more areas of life) but it weirds me out that we create this bizarre social construct called “tests” that give people crippling anxiety … and then we solve the problem with drugs. Instead of developing alternative models for testing people. (Although there are probably correlations and people with test anxiety might get it for other things as well?)
I got nothin’. Have you tried making an anonymous survey and surveying your Facebook friends? That’s what I would try.
I think this has to do with the difference between work and curiosity mode. In curiosity mode solving problems is much easier, but stress reliably kills it. Once the stress is gone, the answers come pouring out.
It’s extremely common with certain learning disabilities, like dyslexia and to a lesser extent dyscalculia. For many people, it’s the time limit, rather than the seriousness of the task itself, and eliminating the time limit to take the test permits them to finish it without issue (frequently within the time limit!).
In the class I TA for, the students can go to the professor’s office hours after the midterm / final, and if they can solve the problem there, they still get… half of the points? I wonder how that one affects test-taking performance.
Also, this whole thing seems to be annoyingly resistant to Bayesian updates… “Every time I’m anxious I perform bad, and now I’m worried about being too worried for this exam”, and, since performing bad is a very valid prediction in this state of mind, worry is there to stay.
Maybe if the tests are called “quizzes” the students end up in the other stable state of “not being worried”?
I feel like it’s the students’ responsibility to calibrate their own personal correct amount of worry that it takes to make them study, regardless of what the thing is called? (Like if I say “This quiz is worth 50% of your grade,” they should be able to tell that it’s not really a quiz.) But at the same time, it sounds like some brains have this worry horizon where once they start worrying, then it’s all they can do. So we need to somehow calibrate the scariness of exams so that only a very small percentage of people fall off the worry horizon, because people who fail from not studying can just start studying. The stable state of not being worried is a good place! ^_^
This kind of reminds me of all of the (non-technical) articles about game addiction and how it’s in the designers’ best interest to keep everyone hooked but still high-functioning enough that we won’t outlaw WoW the way we outlaw harmful, addictive narcotics.
Brains are such a mess. ^_^