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Stepping into the classroom at the beginning of an academic year, many learners experience various types of anxiety or fear. As educators equipped with student counselling techniques, you can often notice a sense of nervousness among your learners as you introduce yourself and hand out the course syllabus for them to review. Most learners settle in a little while, but some tend to remain consistently fearful. It is likely that their high levels of fear affect their ability (negatively) to learn in the class week after week. Here, let’s discuss the draining fear in certain students’ lives and identify how educators can help them gain success despite their fear.  

Human beings generally begin to experience fear from an early age and with time develop means to manage and tame this emotion. There are those who believe they are physically insufficient, for instance, may work hard to excel at sports and other socially-endorsed activities. After several years of schooling, some individuals develop ongoing or chronic feelings of worry and apprehension, and this constant fear can hinder learners’ attempts to understand the ways that are required to achieve their academic goals.

Speaking of which, let’s deliberate on the fear of exams.

Exam fear

Exam fear or test anxiety can occur when learners grow an underlying fear of failure, when they feel the pressure to stand out from their peers, or when they’ve had poor experiences from previous tests. It can lead to a range of physical symptoms, such as ‘butterflies in the stomach’ or something more severe, like headache, nausea, and light-headedness, as well as emotional and cognitive signs like feelings of helplessness and difficulty focusing. Learners with severe test-anxiety (fear of exams) often undergo such symptoms. Even if they have prepared and worked hard for the test and know the material/chapters, they would still freeze or go blank once the test begins or the question paper is in front of them. In a modern-day world, where schools are shifting between offline and virtual learning, the emotion of fear or anxiety is likely to soar even higher as worries about being prepared or general anxiety mix in with other test-taking reactions.

Here’s how you, as a counsellor can help distressed learners:

No teacher or caregiver wishes to see a student stressed out, so much as to this extent, over any single exam. So, what can educators with a diploma in school counselling do to help learners manage their fear for exams and take the anxiety out of testing day?

Mentioned here are few helpful tips:

• Prioritize classroom preparation efforts

If anything can bring a sea of confidence and peace of mind that has to be studying and preparing beforehand that students really do have control over when it comes to testing.

• Ask students where their fear is coming from

Having a better understanding of the fact as ‘why’ a learner is undergoing test anxiety or if there is anything aggravating. Such information can be hugely helpful in figuring out the best way to manage it.

• Keep things in perspective

No single test is a ‘future-teller’ or going to describe a learner’s academic career or have that important of an impact on their future. As a teacher, it’s your duty to make them come to terms with it; after all it’s just one test.

• Empower students with simple strategies

Empower your students with some basic anxiety-reducing and mindfulness practices that can be a big help for them. Encourage them to practice simple deep breathing exercises, use positive self-talk and affirmations, or do seated stretches to release tension when the test is proceeding.

• Teach effective test-taking strategies

Help your learners to calm their nerves by ensuring that they are familiar with test-taking skills along with the actual content which they’re being tested on. Some of these practices include reading the questions properly, skipping questions that they don’t know to manage time, and reviewing answers if time allows.

• Help students create a study schedule

While preparation is certainly the key here, it’s vital to be planned about how to carry it out. Try assisting your learners in planning study schedules to be followed at home.

• Focus on the positives

Try shifting their focus by helping them reflect on some positive past experiences. Getting them to stop worrying and remember their own abilities can go a long way toward breaking the negativity cycle and calm their nerves in the process.

• Practice with the pressure off

Educators can try using assessment as an opportunity to celebrate failure and build mastery through the approach that failure can provide more information about where the focus for learning needs to be to prepare for a graded or high stakes situation.

Try taking simple 10 minutes before a test to assist your learners view the ‘stress’ emotion in a positive outlook. While it’s easy to have faith in the accuracy of tests, students’ fear of failure can prevent them from showing what they know on big tests - but the mentioned tips and a 10-minute talk-it-out session can be of help.