Student sitting at a desk on laptop, instructor teaching from a laptop

Lesson 3: Talking about tests

Test anxiety occurs when students perceive the upcoming assessment as a threat. Students’ threat assessment is impacted by how instructors present the test. Students’ perceptions of tests are impacted by the information provided in the class, on D2L, in the course syllabus, as well as casual comments made by instructors. Students, who are still developing their independent study skills, will look for guided test preparation from the instructor as a source of reassurance. 

When determining if the test is a threat, students evaluate if their choices and actions will impact grades on the assessment. If students perceive they have little or no agency over the test outcome, they are less likely to engage in productive study behaviours. This disengagement serves as a protective factor, increasing time to study for different assessments or for paid work, as well as provides an external reason for poor performance.  

Students need to believe that they can be successful on the test and can successfully engage in the steps, including studying to achieve their desired outcome on their test. Instructors can support this by building a student’s self-efficacy. Self-efficacy refers to students’ perceptions that they can successfully engage in the necessary actions to reach an outcome. 

Reducing tests as a threat

Audio recording of student sharing their experience with test anxiety. Voice actor: Nhat Vu

Infographic for reducing tests as threats

Students who can visualize and anticipate test content are less likely to associate the test with a threat. This visualization reduces the uncertainty regarding the test (Numan & Hasan, 2017). Instructors can support students’ ability to anticipate the content of the exam by modelling metacognitive practices used to implicitly identify test content.

  1. Learning outcomes for tests

    Typical descriptions of exams focus on the material covered in the assessment. Providing test learning outcomes helps students understand the skills and abilities that they will be expected to demonstrate in the test. This approach helps students move from recalling and memorizing to higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. Learning outcomes help students understand what is evaluated through the test.

  2. Access to practice questions and formative assessment

    Students can enhance their understanding of the test through practice questions. Practice questions that are similar to the structure and difficulty of the actual test enhance students’ ability to self-assess their performance before a timed or higher-stakes assessment. This self-assessment can inform study behaviour while reducing student worry about performance.

  3. Student-created study guides and questions

    The instructor can prompt students to anticipate test content by having them construct possible exam questions. Ahn and Class (2011) found that students who drafted exam questions demonstrated greater ownership over learning and expanded their metacognition skills. The value of study guides and questions increases if students receive feedback for the upcoming assessment.

Students who believe a test will not be fair are less likely to engage in productive study behaviour. When a test is considered unfair, students may believe their study behaviour will have no effect on the test outcomes. Factors that impact students’ perspectives of the fairness of the assessment include the following:

  1. Time between instruction and assessment

    Exams that occur immediately after the instruction are considered less fair as students have not had a chance to review and practice. Students want to have the time to build a solid understanding of the topic before the summative assessment.  

  2. Poor class performance on previous assessments

    Students may disengage if a large portion of the class does poorly on a previous assessment. In addition, student self-efficacy will be impacted by their previous performance in the class.

  3. Perceived unrealistic expectations

    When students perceive that the instructor’s expectation for test performance or the amount of time needed to prepare for the test is unachievable, they are unlikely to invest effort in the study process. This is because students will consider their workload and assessment requirements across their courses, engage in a cost-benefit analysis of the effort involved to meet requirements, and choose to invest time and energy where it will have the most impact.

Students take cues from their instructors’ attitudes towards students. Students are less likely to engage in study behaviours if they perceive the instructor as a barrier rather than an ally in their success.

  1. Availability of support before the assessment

    Students report positively on instructors who are proactively available before assessments, whether during office hours or via email. In addition to the opportunity for clarification, students interpret this availability as a signal of instructor support and investment in student success. 

  2. Empathize with students’ challenges

    Instructors who respond with empathy to students’ life situations are perceived as more supportive. In addition, instructors who normalize persistence and struggle with concepts help reduce test anxiety and increase student self-efficacy. 

  3. Avoid class comparison and competition

    Competition may engage some students; however, it can also reinforce stereotype threats for others. Stereotype threat refers to situations in which a negative stereotype about a particular group can be re-affirmed. Students may avoid putting in discretionary effort if they have a fixed mindset about testing and attribute success to innate ability. Social comparisons reinforce this fixed mindset. As such, social comparison can increase test anxiety.

Support your student’s self-efficacy in test descriptions

Instructors can support student self-efficacy by doing the following: 

Share stories of persistence

Instructors aren’t always successful or innately gifted in the areas they teach. Share stories about mistakes and persistence that lead to success in the end.

Show how the course prepares them for the assessment

Often instructors engage in a variety of learning activities and formative assessments that build towards the summative exam. Make these connections explicit and show students how they have already engaged in test preparation throughout the course.

Connect assessments to learning rather than performance goals

Often exams are discussed in terms of final grades. To counteract grade pressure, have students discuss how the assessment will help them reach their learning goals. Have students identify where they will use the knowledge and skills again, such as in other courses or in other disciplines.

Encourage a sense of belonging

Counteract stereotype threats by showing students that they all belong in the class. The impact of stereotype threat is particularly prominent for students who are female-identifying, racialized, first-in-family, and students with disabilities. Valuing each students lived experience and how it connects them to the course material can help create this sense of belonging. 

Embrace the following:

  • Explaining the assessment in terms of the class content and activities 

  • Highlighting similarities to previous formative assessment and learning activities 

  • Describing successful study strategies and the value of the test preparation activities 

  • Highlighting activities that involve active learning techniques and self-assessment

Avoid the following:

  • Describing test as in general terms, “difficult, easy, challenging, or hard” 

  • Referring students to broad or unspecific practice questions or textbook resources 

  • Encouraging class competition and comparison to motivate students 

  • Emphasizing time pressure or speed as a requirement of successful test performance, where speed is not a predefined evaluation criteria 

Reflection questions:

  • How do you currently discuss tests in your course? What information do you include about the exams? What information might you add or change in the future? 
  • How do you prepare students for exams in your course?  How might you explain these activities as part of the preparation process? 

Lesson checklist

After this lesson, you will be able to: 

  • Define how certain “talk” about assessment promotes perception of tests as threats  

  • Determine opportunities for shifting students’ perceptions of tests as threats by reflecting on current descriptions of tests 

References

​Ahn, R., & Class, M. (2011). Student-centered pedagogy: Co-construction of knowledge through student-generated midterm exams. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 23(2), 269–281. 

Birenbaum, M. (2007). Assessment and instruction preferences and their relationship with test anxiety and learning strategies. Higher Education, 53(6), 749–768. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-005-4843-4 

Hsu, J. L., & Goldsmith, G. R. (2021). Instructor strategies to alleviate stress and anxiety among college and university STEM students. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 20(1), es1. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.20-08-0189 

Lizzio, A., & Wilson, K. (2013). First-year students’ appraisal of assessment tasks: Implications for efficacy, engagement and performance. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 38(4), 389–406. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2011.637156 

Loose, T., & Vasquez-Echeverría, A. (2021). Academic performance and feelings of belonging: Indirect effects of time perspective through motivational processes. Current Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01779-4 

Masuku, M. M., Jili, N. N., & Sabela, P. T. (2020). Assessment as a pedagogy and measuring tool in promoting deep learning in institutions of higher learning. International Journal of Higher Education, 10(2), 274. https://doi.org/10.5430/ijhe.v10n2p274 

Numan, A., & Hasan, S. (2017). Test-anxiety provoking stimuli among undergraduate students. Journal of Behavioural Sciences, 27(1). 

Wright, C. D., Eddy, S. L., Wenderoth, M. P., Abshire, E., Blankenbiller, M., & Brownell, S. E. (2016). Cognitive difficulty and format of exams predicts gender and socioeconomic gaps in exam performance of students in introductory biology courses. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 15(2), ar23. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.15-12-0246 

Zwettler, C., Reiss, N., Rohrmann, S., Warnecke, I., Luka-Krausgrill, U., & van Dick, R. (2018). The relation between social identity and test anxiety in university students. Health Psychology Open, 5(2), 205510291878541. https://doi.org/10.1177/2055102918785415 

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