{"id":24881,"date":"2018-07-03T16:31:08","date_gmt":"2018-07-03T20:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/?p=24881"},"modified":"2022-03-16T10:45:10","modified_gmt":"2022-03-16T14:45:10","slug":"exam-roulette-test-anxiety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/exam-roulette-test-anxiety\/","title":{"rendered":"Can \u2018Exam Roulette\u2019 Reduce Test Anxiety?"},"content":{"rendered":"

For many students, an impending exam can induce powerful feelings of anxiety. <\/span><\/p>\n

While a small degree of anxiety can compel a person to perform better on a given task, high levels of anxiety can cause people to \u201cfreeze up\u201d in exam situations and hinder performance. Between 16 and 20 percent of students experience this kind of anxiety, according to the <\/span>American Test Anxieties Association<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

When <\/span>Dr. Andrew Petzold<\/span><\/a>, an assistant professor at the <\/span>Center for Learning Innovation<\/span><\/a> at the <\/span>University of Minnesota Rochester (UMR)<\/span>,<\/span> heard his students say that they were experiencing feelings of anxiety and unpreparedness before long-form essay exams, he decided to find a way to help them.<\/span><\/p>\n

He developed a strategy that he calls \u201c<\/span>Exam Roulette<\/span><\/a>\u201d to help his students prepare for written exams in which they are instructed to answer a series of essay questions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI had been giving students topic areas for them to study for a while and had often heard the feedback that students \u2018studied for the wrong things\u2019 or \u2018froze-up when they saw the essays,\u2019\u202f\u201d he said. \u201cI figured it might be beneficial for my students to know more of what I was looking for in my essays before having to answer them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

So, with the intent to help his students feel more prepared before writing an essay test, he began to provide his students with a list of potential questions that could end up on the exam.<\/span><\/p>\n

The class before the exam, students are allowed to ask clarification questions about the topics. Petzold will answer these questions to help guide their studies, but won\u2019t provide any specific information that could be used in a response.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, comes a game of chance. <\/span><\/p>\n

On the day of the exam, Petzold rolls a die to select which of the questions will end up on the exam. Each side of the die corresponds to a potential essay question. The sides that are rolled dictate the questions that will appear on the exam.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I rolled the die to choose the question, there was a bit of a carnival atmosphere — students were rooting for numbers, cheering when a specific number was rolled and booing when a different one was rolled,\u201d he said. \u201cIt acted like a release before they had to start writing — it was kind of fun.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Petzold recently presented a poster on Exam Roulette at the the American Physiological Society\u2019s (APS) <\/span>Institute on Teaching and Learning<\/span><\/a> in Madison, Wisconsin.<\/span><\/p>\n

Preliminary results suggest that the game, and the additional preparation for the exam, can help students feel more prepared and may help reduce essay-related anxiety. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve polled the students and am currently analyzing data to see how statistically significant the results are, but so far, the majority of students report that there is a reduction in anxiety related to the exam,\u201d said Petzold. \u201cStudents seem to feel better prepared as well — which has been shown to correlate with exam-related anxiety in the past.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He is comparing the positive feedback from his students with actual test scores to see if there is any hard evidence that the game actually improves students\u2019 performance on essays. <\/span><\/p>\n

He also plans to try the game with students in other disciplines at UMR.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEither way, the results in relation to a reduction in self-reported anxiety associated with the exams is promising,\u201d he said. <\/span><\/p>\n

Petzold is currently preparing the project for publication.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For many students, an impending exam can induce powerful feelings of anxiety. While a small degree of anxiety can compel a person to perform better on a given task, high levels of anxiety can cause people to \u201cfreeze up\u201d in exam situations and hinder performance. Between 16 and 20 percent of students experience this kind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":45369,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[661,688,230,229,526],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ace-college","category-discourse-ace-college","category-news","category-lead-stories","category-university-of-minnesota-rochester"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/UMR-Exam-Roulette-1.jpeg",830,533,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/UMR-Exam-Roulette-1-224x144.jpeg",224,144,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/UMR-Exam-Roulette-1-300x193.jpeg",300,193,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/UMR-Exam-Roulette-1.jpeg",830,533,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/UMR-Exam-Roulette-1.jpeg",830,533,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/UMR-Exam-Roulette-1.jpeg",830,533,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/UMR-Exam-Roulette-1.jpeg",830,533,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Sam Benezra","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/author\/sam-benezra\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"For many students, an impending exam can induce powerful feelings of anxiety. While a small degree of anxiety can compel a person to perform better on a given task, high levels of anxiety can cause people to \u201cfreeze up\u201d in exam situations and hinder performance. Between 16 and 20 percent of students experience this kind…","featured_media_src_url":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/UMR-Exam-Roulette-1.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}