text anxiety, its causes, effects, and how to control it
a1. Introduction
Anxiety levels in students may increase majorly due to the imposing of the education system based tests to the students. This type of anxiety that emanates from the education system based tests is commonly referred to as “student test anxiety.” Usually, anxiety levels in students differ. There are those students whose levels are low, and there are those whose levels are high. Many pieces of research have shown that a little anxiety level is good as it acts as it motivates students by pushing them to perform well. Under other conditions, high anxiety levels in students can cause a disturbance to their mental skills, making them lose concentration in test questions, leading to poor performance. This research paper expounds on text anxiety, its causes, effects, and how to control it.
Thesis statement
The current educational system is causing the students across the world to be overwhelmed and filled with anxiety. One of the main points that a person can come up with when he or she hears of student stress is the education system based tests. Students get a sizeable amount of homework nowadays, causing them to forget about their personal life to complete those assessments, though the latter doesn’t apply to every student. However, doing all of our assessments while working is not an easy task as it can make us get filled up with anxiety.
- Body
Student test anxiety refers to a type of performance anxiety that is characterized by psychological distress, academic failure, and insecurity about succeeding academically.
Symptoms of student test anxiety
Based on the researches that have been carried out by various scholars, there are four forms of symptoms of the anxiety that results from the education system based tests. They include; corporeal symptoms, behavior-based symptoms, cognitive-based symptoms, and emotional-based symptoms. The corporeal-based symptoms are nausea, shaking and sweating, rapid heartbeat, and fainting. Additionally, there are those mild occurrences of anxiety that result in some butterflies in their stomachs, whereas more acute occurrences cause physical illness to the students. Cognitive- based symptoms and behavioral-based symptoms include making of nervous movements and avoiding of the testing situations completely. In more severe cases, test anxiety can make the students abandon their studies as a way of avoiding the tests. The students may also be tempted to engage in substance abuse in an attempt to suppress their increased levels of anxiety by taking downers like alcohol. Many students with test anxiety report leaving blank the questions to their tests, despite studying thoroughly before the tests and being sure of the answers to the questions. .Cognitive symptoms include having negative self-talks, having trouble when it comes to concentrating on the tests, and having racing thoughts. Emotional symptoms are low self-esteem, depression, and anger. Students often belittle themselves for performing poorly in the tests and always want to get out of the situation.
Causes of student test anxiety
Those students that have experienced test anxiety know very how stressful it can be. However, many of those who have never had an experience of it doubt even its existence. But the truth of the matter is that student test anxiety actually exists, and it is often accompanied by nervousness and lots of fear. Actually, in most of the students, the test anxiety can be so extreme that it lowers their performance ability.
So, what might be the causative agents for student test anxiety? For quite a number of learners, the causes can be a lot of things combined. However, the two fundamental causes are mental causes and biological causes.
Mental causes
There are many mental factors that cause student test anxiety, but the common mental factor is the expectations of the students. For instance, if before sitting for test a student believes that he or she is going to fail in that particular test, he or she will become anxious, resulting in poor performance
Also, student anxiety can become a cycle that is vicious in that after a student has experienced anxiety in the first test, he or she may develop the fear of it happening again, resulting to even higher anxiety levels compared to the first time. After the students have endured test anxiety repeatedly, they may start to feel that the situation I now out of their reach, thus they find a lot of difficulty in changing the situation.
Biological causes
During exacting situations like before sitting for the tests and during the execution of the tests, the body releases the adrenaline hormone. The purpose of this hormone is to prepare the body to combat what will happen in such situations. The response of this hormone prepares a person to either face the situation head-on or pad the hoofs. In most occurrences, this response of the adrenaline hormone is literally something good as it prepares one to deal with exacting situations effectively, thus ensures that one stays alert always.
However, some students might experience excessive anxiety symptoms, which even the adrenaline hormone can’t be able to handle. Usually, nausea and sweating symptoms cause high levels of nervousness.
Other causative agents of anxiety are:
Having a history of poor outcomes in tests. A student can develop a negative attitude towards tests, and there will be an increase in his anxiety levels in an instance where he had performed poorly in his previous tests, either because of not studying well or because of being so anxious that he couldn’t remember his answers.
Unpreparedness. If a student fails to prepare well for the tests, his feelings of anxiety can increase before sitting for the tests.
Having a fear of failure. If a student has a phobia towards failure, he may inflict pressure on himself, thus causing anxiety.
Effects of student test anxiety
Majorly, student test anxiety affects the performance of students. It can affect any student’s performance, irrespective of age, gender, level of grades, or ethnic groups.