Improving Students' Assessment Performance by Reducing Stress and Anxiety in the Testing Environment
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Fall 2023
Abstract
The driving focus of this action research was to better understand how teachers and school districts can help with students' anxiety and stress surrounding assessments. This better understanding of anxiety and stress is crucial to improving academic performance not only on assessments but also across their academic life. A quantitative study was conducted with 88 students spread over two unique content types. 30 students were part of the control group, and the rest of the students were split between one of four different interventions which attempted to reduce students’ assessment anxiety and stress to lead to performance increases. The results showed mixed results, the interventions over the course of the semester didn't show significant impacts to assessment performance. However, some variables on their own had significance across the semester. Which indicated that certain assessments or classes were significantly different. This action research concludes that more research should be conducted into individual interventions across long periods of time as well as having students research and learn about reappraisal and coping methods of anxiety and stress to better serve them longer term.