College offers resources to help overcome test anxiety
The impact test anxiety can have on students can be negatively influencing to their future and career.
Cheyanne Tillick, a student at Lethbridge College has been impacted by her exam stress which has affected her academic performance and has set her back in her three-year program.
Tillick enrolled at the college January 2022. In pursuit to get into her chosen program Early Childhood Education. She wanted to take an Accuplacer test to go straight into her program. Tillick shared how due to her ongoing struggle with test anxiety this put her at a disadvantage.
“The Accuplacer would have helped, you know. And I would have been further if I you know didn’t have that anxiety and constant worrying of like what I need to get to pass or whatever the passing score. I definitely would have been further if I didn’t have test anxiety,” said Tillick.
Andrew Derksen, academic strategist at Lethbridge College shared his experience working with students that struggle with test anxiety and how it can be a setback and influence their overall performance.
“In most cases a student has prepared adequately for a test. They know how to use the information and how to apply it and so on. But then their anxiety causes them to underperform on the test. They will provide the wrong answers on multiple choice test. If the anxiety was not there, they would have chosen better answers. And then that effects their score and performance over all which leads to failure,” Derksen shared.
After several attempts to overcome Tillick’s test anxiety she was unable to pass her Accuplacer test. She was a few points shy of the passing grade. Tillick had no choice but to take an upgrading class.
“It was kind of like a let-down. I didn’t feel smart enough I don’t know I just felt like a failure, but you know you got to keep trying to push for what we want,” she said.
According to Derksen there is still a need for tests, however he feels tests are overused in the current school systems.
“Tests are still needed; they still provide value in assessment and evaluation of the knowledge and skills that a learner’s gain. But there are many different forms of assessments and there are many different aways that the knowledge can be assessed. Tests are only one of the ways they are probably overused in the current education model,” said Derksen.
Lethbridge College offers many resources and workshops to help students who struggle with test anxiety. There are many tools available, workshops and appointments available to them. There are also some online resources as well that Lethbridge College’s Learning Café has to offers for students that experience test anxiety. Most of the workshops and appointments deal with small groups of students; where students learn strategies and technique in help them to work past their per-test anxiety.
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