{"id":36,"date":"2017-03-31T18:53:14","date_gmt":"2017-03-31T18:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.coaches.homeworkcoach.com\/?p=36"},"modified":"2017-03-31T18:54:06","modified_gmt":"2017-03-31T18:54:06","slug":"help-your-students-deal-with-test-taking-anxiety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.coaches.homeworkcoach.com\/?p=36","title":{"rendered":"Help your student’s deal with test-taking anxiety"},"content":{"rendered":"

All students occasionally experience test-taking anxiety, but research presented in the November\/December 2011 issue of the journal\u00a0<\/span>Teaching Exceptional Children\u00a0<\/span><\/em>suggests that children with ADHD and other learning disabilities are more likely to consistently experience symptoms of anxiety during test taking. These students may have cognitive difficulties that interfere with test-taking abilities, negative self-concepts as a result of poor academic performance in the past, and lack study skills and strategies that help them feel adequately prepared for tests.<\/p>\n

As a Homework Coach working with ADHD-diagnosed and learning disabled students, there are a number of strategies that you can utilize to help students to reduce their test-taking anxiety:<\/p>\n

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Teach students how to recognize anxiety symptoms.\u00a0<\/span><\/em>\u00a0Oftentimes, children are not aware of how their bodily responses might affect their ability to stay focused on the task at hand (such as test-taking). If a student is feeling anxious or nervous while taking a test, he might begin to sweat, feel like he has \u201cbutterflies\u201d in his stomach, feel nauseous, or start to shake. Encourage students to be aware that these are physiological symptoms that are manifestations of their anxiety and help them come up with ways to acknowledge that they are not sick and there is nothing wrong with them, but that these are simply ways that the human body may react to stress.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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Help students to practice positive self-talk.\u00a0<\/span><\/em>Working with ADHD-diagnosed children, it\u2019s likely that you\u2019ve heard students say things like \u201cI\u2019m not smart enough to get good grades\u201d or \u201cI\u2019ll never pass this test\u201d. Help students to reframe their thoughts by teaching them to use positive self-talk. The concept of self-statements or self-talk comes from the practice of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) which has been found to be a highly successful form of therapy for reducing ADHD-related symptoms. The logic behind self-talk is that the way a person thinks about himself can directly affect his behavior. If a student has a negative self-concept because he has done poorly on tests in the past, he may be more likely to have negative thoughts about himself and his abilities. Help him to come up with some positive statements such as \u201cI am prepared and my job is to do the best I can.\u201d When the student starts to feel anxious about the test, he can repeat these statements to calm his anxiety and encourage his self-esteem.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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Utilize practice tests.\u00a0<\/span><\/em>Have students take practice tests to help them get used to the process of test taking. If students have practice before taking exams, they are more likely to feel confident about the actual test. Many teachers will offer practice tests for students to take home and sometimes (particularly for math courses) there are practice tests at the end of each chapter in the textbook. You can also use a free online test generator such as Testmoz (http:\/\/testmoz.com<\/a>) that allows you to create and customize practice tests by type (true\/false, multiple choice, fill in the blank, and multiple response). Use a timer and try to recreate testing conditions to the best of your ability (such as having the student sit at a desk to take the test) to help it feel more \u201creal\u201d. Not only will this strategy help students to adjust to testing conditions, it will also help them to study by reviewing the material that will be on the test, making them more likely to perform well.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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Ensure that students are aware of effective test-taking techniques.\u00a0<\/span><\/em>There are a number of test-taking techniques that can help students to feel more comfortable in their test taking skills. Examples include working backwards on multiple-choice tests by first eliminating answers that the student knows are wrong, skipping and coming back to questions where the student is unsure about the answer, and understanding the mechanics of true\/false questions (such as the answer will seldom be true if it says \u201calways\u201d or \u201cnever\u201d). Our\u00a0<\/span>In-Home Tutors<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>and\u00a0<\/span>HomeworkCoach<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>blogs offer a number of study strategies and test-taking techniques that you can utilize with students.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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Encourage students to get out some energy before the test.\u00a0<\/span><\/em>If your student has the opportunity to do some exercises before testing that will tire out his body somewhat, he is less likely to experience the rush of adrenaline that often results from anxiety. If he cannot exercise before the test, encourage him to do deep-breathing exercises. Many times when people are anxious, they tend to engage in shallow breathing that leads to an increase in heart rate and hyperventilation. Deep-breathing releases neurohormones that inhibit stress-response hormones (such as adrenaline), leading to lessened anxiety and increased relaxation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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Offer encouragement and gentle correction.<\/em>\u00a0<\/span>Because ADHD-diagnosed children often have lowered self-esteem and self-concept due to their tendency to internalize failure, encouragement can be a huge help in boosting their self-esteem. When your student performs well on a test or assignment, celebrate and reinforce his good work by telling him \u201cI am so proud of you! You really did a great job on that test and I\u2019m sure it\u2019s because you worked so hard.\u201d Not only does this help the student feel that you are happy with his performance, but it also helps to make him responsible for his own success by stating that his good grade is a result of his hard work. This can encourage the student to continue to study and put in effort because he will see that hard work pays off. When your student does not do as well as he would like, gently discuss what went wrong and then help to come up with a strategy that can help him to perform better on future assignments.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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Be aware of and utilize test taking accommodations.<\/em>\u00a0<\/span>As previously discussed on this blog, students who are diagnosed with ADHD are entitled to certain accommodations as a result of federal laws that protect students with disabilities and ensure equal educational opportunities for such students. Many ADHD-diagnosed students experience test-taking anxiety because they are worried they will run out of time on tests or they have difficulty concentrating when other things are going on around them. Encourage your student\u2019s parents to talk to the child\u2019s school and find out what test-taking accommodations are available for him and how teachers can help him to have a test-taking environment that will help him to be more academically successful.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Using these tips and strategies with your students may help students to feel more confident about test-taking and help to reduce test-taking anxiety and its associated symptoms. You can also help to get the student\u2019s parents on board by referring them to our HomeworkCoach blog post on this issue that shares the same information written to a parent\u2019s perspective. When everyone is on-board in addressing such issues, it is much more likely that your student will benefit from these strategies and have improved academic performance.<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
All students occasionally experience test-taking anxiety, but research presented in the November\/December 2011 issue of the journal\u00a0Teaching Exceptional Children\u00a0suggests that children with ADHD and other learning disabilities are more likely to consistently experience symptoms of anxiety during test taking. These students may have cognitive difficulties that interfere with test-taking abilities, negative self-concepts as a result […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-anxiety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coaches.homeworkcoach.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coaches.homeworkcoach.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coaches.homeworkcoach.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coaches.homeworkcoach.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coaches.homeworkcoach.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.coaches.homeworkcoach.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coaches.homeworkcoach.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coaches.homeworkcoach.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coaches.homeworkcoach.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}