Is test anxiety healthy?

I still occasionally have nightmares of showing up to a class unprepared and having to take a test I didn’t study for. Remember that feeling? The sweaty palms, the sense of dread, and the general sense of fear? Yuck. Maybe you went with the classic of just answering c for every question on the scantron. Maybe you just sat there and didn’t even try and answer. Maybe you just guessed at everything. I feel like, given all the tests we take all the way through high school most of us experienced this at one time or another. Perhaps I can speak for everyone and say that, no, I did not enjoy the experience, either then or reminiscing on it now. Does that make it bad or unhealthy?

Scientists are still trying to unlock all the pros and cons of test-taking with regard to its benefits or detriments. Obviously, test anxiety is simply fear. Fear of failure. Fear of the unknown. Fear of judgment. Fear of being left behind. Fear of the truth. It is this last one that is particularly interesting because it strikes at the very purpose of taking a test, to assess whether a person understands the material or can do a particular thing. We all like to think we have a handle on the world around us and nobody likes being awakened to the truth that, no, you don’t actually know what you are talking about or can’t do something. Tests are a measure of that. A fact. 

A second component of test taking, and the following text anxiety, is we use them to reference how one person stands in relation to another, or a group, or people in general. If you get a C on a test, you scored an average score. This means the majority of people would score similar to you. However, there is an underlying feeling of judgment because you weren’t “better” than everyone else. Again, we return to this inflated sense of self that so many people are operating under. If they are never assessed on that self, then there is no way to discount their claim of superiority. Especially to themselves. The anxiety, it would seem, is tied up in their sense of self and lack of confidence in that assertion being valid. Nobody wants to get exposed. 

I cannot tell you the number of students I interacted with who thought they “deserved” an A after taking a test. The score was average, but they thought they deserved better. Some reason was given as to why a score of excellence was not obtained. A longer conversation always revealed some pressure to take on a high-powered occupation either by themselves or some family member. “No, no. There must be some sort of mistake. I am an A student. All of my family are doctors or lawyers or CEOs”. The unfortunate truth was, at least for this exam, they were not “better” than their peers and they could not understand it. Now, for the second exam, they put more pressure on themselves, which sometimes helped (more studying) or sometimes made things worse (bringing even more emotion to the test). This latter thread is how we get test anxiety. It can start at any point in the educational process and often revolves around when a person hits a reality wall of where they actually stand in their understanding of the material. It’s a gut check. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s actually healthy long term. 

Getting back to my original point of Is this healthy? Yes, but only initially. Fear left to fester and without proper guidance can spiral out of control. A small amount of fear, like at the beginning, is healthy because it reflects that the person cares about the outcome. They want to do well. Not doing well motivates them to try or to make changes if the outcome isn’t to their liking.  This is a good thing. It is how we grow and get better. We need to be at peace with the idea that failure is necessary to get better. So, we need to start teaching, this specific thing about the value and importance of testing, of assessment, as soon as possible. Students need to understand why they are being tested and it is for their benefit NOT to make them feel bad. They need to understand the reality that a failed test tells them. They don’t know or they aren’t ready. Not that some imposing overlord is trying to crush their dreams. If we start focusing on building a better emotional foundation early on, one that can weather the storm of struggling on an exam, we can reduce test anxiety and focus on getting them the appropriate resources to solve the problem the test exposed. That they don’t know or can’t do it. Yet. 

So, the solution to test anxiety is to never let them get past the initial stages of fear, the healthy stages. Never foster that growing sense of angst that comes when a student just continues to struggle and becomes more and more emotional. That is why I would argue we do them a disservice worse than failing if we pass them and create an artificial sense in their minds that they do in fact know what they are talking about. Society as a whole loses when we employ this strategy of not holding everyone to the same standards. Many students who are failing or on the brink, are allowed to pass because of either budget cuts, lack of attention, or simply emotional sympathy. They don’t want the social ramifications of being “held back” so they allow the student to move forward. But what does that teach them? To work harder? That standards matter? We aren’t fixing the test anxiety either. It is only growing and growing till someplace down the line, perhaps when the person has much higher stakes, all that comes to a head, and now they have a major failure, maybe the kind you can’t come back from. Is that what we want? Would you want that for your kid? 

Another potential way test anxiety is alleviated is to teach students test tricks.  I remember taking an SAT prep course where they taught us how to navigate the various test questions to eliminate possible incorrect answers to improve our odds of selecting the correct one. Again, not because I knew the answer but because I could choose one with the highest probability of being correct. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of assessing whether I understood the material and my “rank” amongst those test takers when applying to a university? They taught me how to defeat a test. Again, the focus is on the test, and that the test is the problem. The test causes anxiety. Teachers write bad or biased tests and that is why students struggle. Defeat the test, not demonstrate you understand the material. 

Initial test anxiety is healthy and should be fostered, but at a young age. Teach them the value of testing, the importance of the truth, and the understanding that they are not “bad” if they try and don’t do well. They should want to excel, realize its importance, and grow to meet the challenge. Testing is an assessment of present competence, not one's future worth. We need to get away from that message, and that future pressure if we are ever to defeat this growing trend of test anxiety. It is not about the past or the future, it is about what you can do now. And if you can’t do it, that is one of the most important pieces of information you can acquire for creating a healthier you. The truth.