Test Anxiety in Adolescents

You remember the feeling. You’re staring at an exam you studied for, but now matter how hard you think about it, you cannot remember the information. Your body tenses up. You feel panic rise. You are dealing with test anxiety.

 

I have several clients who do very well in school, but feel like they blank out on tests.  This affects their confidence and even their relationships at school.

The worst part for many teens is that they don’t know what to do once this starts. It can get bad enough that a teen starts feeling the anxiety as soon as a test is announced. A couple of bad test-taking incidents, and your child is now phobic of test taking.

A Tool for Test Anxiety

 A really simple tool for test anxiety is called “priming.”  This is a phenomenon psychologists use to influence how someone does on something in the immediate future.  Let’s have you try it out in order to understand how it’s done.

 Steps for Priming Before A Test

Step 1: Get out a pen and paper.

Step 2: Set a timer for 60 seconds.

Step 3: For the next 60 seconds write down as many words as you can think of to describe a Harvard professor.  Don’t overthink this.  Just write down ANYTHING that comes to mind.  If you immediately think of glasses and tweed coats, then write those down.  If you think of the word, ‘smart,’ then write that down.  Just let your mind free-flow.

Step 4: Attempt an intellectually difficult task such as a math problem.

 What Happens When You Use Priming

The point of priming is that when we think of words and images related to what we’re about to do, we do better or worse based on how we think. Sounds obvious right? Yet, most people are not intentional when they prime. 

In fact, we prime all the time. Do you ever find yourself “prepping” before you do something or talk to someone? You are priming for the task. Unfortunately, we often prime in a negative way. But for test anxiety, we can using priming in a positive way.

My Personal Example

Sometimes when I surf I am excited, energized, and eager. In these times I picture the surfing feats of highly talented professionals and slightly less highly talented friends. I am priming. In those cases, I surf pretty well.

At other times, I feel nervous and stiff. In those cases, I picture wipe-outs. I say things to myself such as, “You’ve been doing this for 3 decades and you’re still not very good.” My surfing starts out almost like having test anxiety. It’s as though I can’t even quite remember how to do it.

Back to Priming for Test Anxiety

If I had you imagined a high school drop-out instead of a Harvard professor, you would have performed worse on the task instead of better.  This phenomenon has been repeated in psychological experiments many times.  

It has worked well for my clients with test anxiety too.  Here’s how:  Instead of immediately beginning their exam in school, they take the first 60 seconds and prime with the Harvard professor example.  They have told me they performed about 10% higher on their test than expected. By the way, this is exactly what we’d expect based on the research.

Priming for Athletics 

Also, if you’re nervous before a sporting event, you can do a priming exercise imagining a top notch athlete.  If your adolescent has a swim meet, have him or her imagine Michael Phelps. Your teen can either write down or just tell you descriptors of his abilities before his or her race. The research says your teen should go a bit faster.

Final Thoughts on Adolescent Test Anxiety 

Anxiety is a hard thing.  When you have test anxiety, it can make school miserable.  It can bleed over into your friendships and even how you get along with your parents.  It’s awful.

Instead of letting the test anxiety overwhelm and consume your teen, help them systematically tackle it. Start with priming. Try a few other techniques. If nothing is effective enough, reach out. I’m happy to chat with you about it.

 

Helping teens grow and families improve connection,

Lauren Goodman, MS, MFT