Dealing with Test Anxiety, Part 3 - Journaling, Stereotypes, Meditation & Conclusion

Here is the third and final part in the series dealing with test anxiety.  If you missed the first two parts, they are located here and here.  Enjoy!

Journaling

            Numerous studies have shown that when students feel anxious about performing on an exam, they worry about the situation.  These worries then compromise the students’ working memory.  How can we help students alleviate these worries, thus freeing up precious working memory?  The simple act of writing about and expressing their worries before a critical exam can do exactly that. 

            In one particular study, students were subjected to two math exams.  All students took the first exam under the same conditions, which was relatively stress-free.  Then, using various methods[1], the pressure was applied to both groups to make the second exam as pressure-packed as possible.  In between those exams, the control group was asked to sit quietly for 10 minutes.  The experimentation group was asked to write as openly as possible about their feelings and worries regarding the test.  Everyone then took the second test.

            The control group choked under the pressure.  They showed a 12% decrease in their test scores between the first and second exams.  The expressive writing group actually demonstrated a 5% increase in their test scores over the non-pressure filled first exam.  Not only did the expressive writing assignment help students avoid choking under pressure, it actually helped them rise to the occasion and perform better when the pressure was on.  Researchers were further able to demonstrate that the more the students used anxiety-related words, the greater the effects.[2]

            This act of being honest with ones self, with facing your fears, provides a very valuable benefit to students.  And it only took 10 minutes of their times right before the exam!  We see how this concept plays out in other areas as well. 

            Take the example of David Price, a professional baseball player for the Tampa Bay Rays.  In 2008, he arrived in the major leagues only months after being drafted out of college.  Shortly thereafter, he found himself facing the New York Yankees in the playoffs.  He entered the game as a reliever late in game 7 of the American League Championship Series, with everything on the line.  He would go on to clinch the game for his team and send them on to the World Series for the first time ever.  Here is how he described his feelings as he got ready to enter the game:

I took it back to the same preparation as college.  I did my visualization.  I’d envisioned myself failing now and again.  It’s human.  When you’ve done that envisioning, you’ve seen it before.  You don’t always envision the good stuff because you’re going to give up that home run, you’re going to give up that go-ahead run or game winning hit.  It’s part of the game.

            Price has done his own mental journaling.    He knows what the stakes are; he knows he might not get the results he would like.  He is being realistic with himself.  He has faced his fears, and is therefore no longer intimidated by them.  His working memory has been freed of worry.  Also note that he has practiced all of this before – he used the same preparation he did in college.  “All the pressure was right there, but I wasn’t going to think about it,” Price would say.  “Pressure is perceived.  If I don’t put added pressure on myself, I’ll be fine.” [3]

The same lesson should be taught to students, you don’t have to be perfect - perform your best and face your fears.  Journaling can be the key to establishing this mindset right before a critical exam. 

Eliminate Negative Stereotypes

            Students who are aware of the fact that they are being stereotyped perform much worse on exams than those who are not aware of such stereotypes.  This is known as the stereotype threat, and the threat is both real and damaging.

            Take this experiment as an example of the stereotype threat.  A group of students who scored very well on standardized math tests were gathered at the University of Michigan.  The students were divided into two groups, with a combination of males and females in both groups.  The first group was told before their math exam that the exam they were about to take had shown differences between the sexes in terms of scores.  In this group, males outperformed females on the exam.  The second group was told that their exam was gender-neutral.  On this exam, females performed just as well as males. 

            Or take this example of the stereotype threat.  A professor of Psychology at Tufts University, Julio Garcia, gathered a group of athletic, white students.  A white instructor lead them through a series of exercises:  jump as high as they could, do a standing broad jump, and do as many pushups as possible in 20 seconds.  Then the students were asked to do each of these exercises again, and as expected they improved in each of the tasks.  Then Garcia had a second group of students attempt the same experiment, except this time the students had an African-American instructor.  The white students then failed to improve on their vertical jumps, and some jumped less high.  The white students showed the same improvements they previously had in all of the other exercises.  The explanation?  There is no stereotype regarding how many pushups white athletes can do as compared to their African-American counterparts, but there is the prevalent stereotype regarding how high white men can jump. 

            What it all comes down to is that when your working memory has been compromised by thoughts surrounding the negative stereotype, you do not perform as well as you possibly can.

    

This can be particularly damaging to law school students.  Working memory is housed in the prefrontal cortex of the brain.  Tasks that are more verbal in nature, rather than spatial, take place in the left prefrontal cortex.  Virtually all tasks assigned in law school are verbal in nature, rather than spatial.  When pressure filled exams creates worries or doubts in student’s brains, these worries or doubts are also verbal in nature – they are internal monologues in the student’s brain – and thus also taking place in the left prefrontal cortex.  So when a student is aware of negative stereotypes, not only does this affect their working memory, it affects the specific part of their working memory that is being called upon to perform on law school exams. 

The most significant stereotypes we work against are those based on prior performance.  For example, a student might be confronted with the fact that students in previous years who graduated with subpar GPA only passed the bar exam at a 30% rate.  Their overall law school GPA is subpar, therefore they believe the odds are against them.  This is a real, definable stereotype, but there is more to the equation, and that is what we try to demonstrate to students. 

For example, we can show them that if they complete all required tasks during bar exam preparation, that their chances of passing jump to 80%, regardless of their GPA.  This helps motivate the student to do the work, but also shifts the focus for them as well.[4]  This is actually one of the main reasons we track statistics – to provide a positive framework and confidence for students getting ready to take the bar exam. 

Other techniques discussed in this paper can also help students avoid the implications of the negative stereotype, such as journaling and meditation.  The key is to clear working memory of these thoughts so that cognitive performance can be maximized. 

Meditation

            Meditation generally involves a practice of clearing one’s mind.  For example, most people who are performing Zen meditation are focusing on one thing at a time – typically their breathing.  They must clear their minds of everything else.  If something else pops into their mind, they must be able to deal with it quickly and discard it.  As a result, individuals who practice meditation have been shown to be able to control their thoughts much better than those who do not practice meditation.

            The benefits of meditation thus become very clear considering everything that has been discussed to this point.  Performance on pressure filled exams is dependent upon full function of a students working memory. Anything that can creep into the student’s brain and could compromise their working memory will act as a detriment to cognitive performance.  So it would make sense that those people who have been trained to control their thoughts and discard distracting thoughts would be better able to clear their working memory of distractions on an important exam.

 

            So , do you have to spend years training to become a Zen master in order to reap the benefits of meditation?  Not exactly, though it would be beneficial.  One study showed that three months of meditation practice reduced people’s tendency to have their attention derailed by unwanted thoughts or emotions.  In another study, students with no meditation experience were instructed to perform 10 minutes of meditation and mindful breathing prior to an exam.  Those who did so performed 5% better than those who did not.  This may seem like a minor increase, but there is not much of an investment here either.  And on the bar exam, a 5% increase in performance can often make the difference between passing and failing. 

            All of these benefits probably explain why so many successful people practice meditation.  Tiger Woods credits meditation with helping him develop his ability to perform in the clutch.  Former Los Angeles Lakers and Chicago Bulls head coach Phil Jackson advocated meditation to increase his player’s performance, including the great Michael Jordan.  Al Gore and Hillary Clinton also tout meditation as a tool for performance under pressure. [5]

Conclusion

            Student’s ability to perform well under pressure usually relates do their ability to manage their working memory.  More working memory means more cognitive horsepower to devote to complex mental tasks, such as taking an exam.  By following some of the suggestions in this paper, students should be able to maximize their working memory capabilities, and perform at their best when it matters the most. 

Sources

Sian Beilock, Choke:  What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting it Right When You Have To, Free Press Publishing, 2010.

Paul Sullivan, Clutch:  Excel Under Pressure, Portfolio/Penguin Publishing, 2010. 

Larry Lage (June 26, 2008). Mediate makes the most of his brush with Tiger, The Seattle Times, Associated Press. Retrieved October 24, 2013.

Gerardo Ramirez and Sian Beilock, Writing About Testing Worries Boosts Exam Performance in the Classroom, Science Magazine, January 14, 2011 (Vol 331). 

Daniel T. Willingham, Why Don’t Students Like School?,  Jossey-BassPublishing, 2009.

S.J. Spencer and C.M. Steele and D.M. Quinn, “Stereotype threat and women’s math performance.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35 (1999). 

Malcolm Gladwell, The Art of Failure, The New Yorker, August 21 & 28, 2000.

Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers.  

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[1] “After completing the pretest, students were given a high-pressure scenario based on common pressures:  monetary incentives (which stand in for scholarships associated with high test scores) and peer pressure and social evaluation (which comes from judgments of test scores from admissions committees, teachers, parents and peers).”    Gerardo Ramirez and Sian Beilock, Writing About Testing Worries Boosts Exam Performance in the Classroom, Science Magazine, January 14, 2011 (Vol 331) at 212. 

[2] In an additional experiment, there were three groups given the second exam – the control group, the expressive writing group, and a group of students asked to write about something completely unrelated to the test.  The expressive writing group still performed the best, but the unrelated writing group as a whole still performed better than the control group.  Researchers then analyzed the responses from the unrelated writing group, and found it was those who used anxiety related words, such as “I am afraid,” that performed better, while others who id not use such langauge did not perform better than the control group.  Id.

[3] A full recounting of this story is in the book Clutch by Paul Sullivan.  Sullivan details how Price came to be able to rise to the occasion, while another player on the opposite team in the same game, Alex Rodriguez, failed to do the same. 

[4] These statistics cited are in the ballpark of what we sometimes see, but in no way are meant to reflect our actual statistics. 

[5] There are many books and articles out there on how to develop proper meditation techniques, and it is a topic well beyond the scope of this paper.  However, basic mindful breathing exercises are a simple, easy way to get students started.  Simply ask students to find a comfortable spot and spend 10 minutes focusing on their breathing – count to four while breathing in, count to eight while breathing out.  If anything comes into your mind, accept it but then try to push it from you mind and return to a focus on your breathing.  This type of exercise has also been shown to reduce blood pressure and stress levels. 

Dealing with Test Anxiety, Part 2 - The Role of Practice

By Kevin Sherrill

This is the second part in the series dealing with test anxiety. The first part, found here, talked about why people fail under pressure. Now we start to look at what we can do about text anxiety and performance under pressure. We begin with the role of practice.

What We Can Do

So how can we avoid having a student’s working memory become compromised? There are a lot of different methods for doing so.

Practice Really Does Make Perfect

If we want to get better at anything, we have to practice it. A lot. This isn’t a novel idea, most of us know this instinctually or through our experiences. Malcolm Gladwell makes a very compelling argument in his book Outliers that in order to become an expert in any field or task, you must put in approximately 10,000 hours of practice. For example, Tiger Woods needed 10,000 hours of practice before he became a top-flight golfer, and he had amassed that mount of practice at a fairly young age because he had been trained since the age of 2 to play golf. By the time The Beatles had any real success, they had played 1200 times over a period of a few years, playing up to 8 hours at a time.

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom became one of the largest and most powerful law firms in the world because its founders practiced hostile takeover law for decades before hostile takeovers became common – and being a master in that area of law became insanely valuable. That amount of practice shouldn’t be required to avoid the choke on a law school exam, but practice is certainly going to help.

So what might a student do in order to better on pressure-packed law school exams, or even the bar exam? Take lots of pressure packed exams of course! Faculty can’t replicate the pressure of a bar exam perfectly, but they can put the students under pressure as often as possible. For example, one thing we do is have students take lots of timed, in class, for-credit examinations throughout certain courses. Students are subjected to the pressure of doing well to pass their course, the pressure of performing with their classmates around, the pressure of the clock ticking, not to mention the simple pressure placed upon themselves to perform as best they can. This training can greatly improve results, and might actually change the physical wiring of student’s brains.

Practice and experience can actually change the structure and function of people’s brains. London cabbies, who must navigate the city from memory all day, have enlarged hippocampus, the part of the brain that deals with navigation and recollection of driving routes. Individuals trained in juggling have increased brain mass in the areas of the brain that understand motion. Musicians, who must have superior control of both hands and be able to coordinate them in complex manners, have enlarged corpus callosum. The corpus callosum is the connection between the two halves of the brain that allows for the two halves to communicate with each other – an essential function for a musician who needs their hands to work together.

This makes sense when you think about our bodies’ ability to adapt to what we throw at them. I may not be able to go out and run a marathon tomorrow, but if I take the time to train my body to be able to do something like that, then it can be done. Likewise, practice under pressure can train our brains to manage pressure and stress much more efficiently. It can teach us to handle the pressure and allow our working memory to function at its highest level.

Practice has another terrific benefit for our working memories. Through practice, mental processes can be automated. Take for example a child learning how to tie their shoes. When the child is first learning this process, it requires most of their working memory to tie that shoelace – they have to focus on the process that was recently taught to them and make sure they are executing the steps properly. After lots of practice, however, the same child can carry on a conversation or perform some other mental task at the same time they tie their shoes. Why? Because they have automated the process of tying their shoes, thus freeing up their working memory for other tasks. Another way to look at it: the process for tying shoelaces has moved from the child’s working memory into procedural memory.

The same process can happen for students in law school. This is why we teach and drill our students on the proper use of IRAC throughout law school, for example. Through long periods of practice, the process of structuring an essay around an IRAC format can become automated. It becomes something the student doesn’t have to think about; they just do it as they have done a hundred times before. That frees up the student’s working memory to focus on handling their facts and doing good analysis.

Another example comes during bar exam preparation. We always teach our students to have rule statements memorized for as many different issues as possible. That way, when that particular issue shows up on the bar exam, the student has that rule statement in their procedural memory ready to go. They don’t have to think about it, they just write. Again, working memory is freed to focus on other things.

Practice is something that many of us already know is very effective in helping students achieve on exams. The rest of the suggested methods for dealing with difficult and stressful exams may not be as apparent to many.

Preparation and Confidence

A related concept to practice is preparation. The concepts are related, yet differ in important aspects. Practicing is when you actually do the task you are ultimately hoping to accomplish – for example, practice exams to get ready for the real exam. Preparation is different – this is the studying required to have the baseline knowledge required to perform well on the exam.

The need for preparation is obvious – if we need to prepare for an exam on ancient Greek history, we must study ancient Greek history, as well as write practice exams. But there is an added benefit to preparation, and it is confidence. When you know that you have thoroughly reviewed all required materials, you can answer questions about that material with more confidence. There are no surprises, and nothing rattles you because you have seen it all before – in both your preparation and your practice.

Famous trial attorney David Boies perfectly demonstrates how important preparation can be. He describes his preparation as such:

“When we showed up for the opening statement, I had read every single exhibit we had marked before we marked it. I had read every single deposition excerpt that we had marked for offering into evidence before we had marked it. I had read every single deposition line they had offered.” Such preparation required reading thousands of pages of documents, something most lawyers don’t so in preparation for trial because of the massive resources required to do so. “There are no surprises for me, but you can’t imagine how few people that’s true for” he says. “There is no way most lawyers do that.”

This preparation gives Boies a major advantage. He knows all of the material so well that he can remain focused on the story he wants to tell – not on reacting to what the other side might be saying. “When I get up there, I have the confidence of knowing what the total evidence record is, and I know how far I can push it and how far I can’t. I know what the limits are, and that’s the way you maintain your credibility.” And it is this credibility that wins him major cases, such as the antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft in the late 1990’s. “Most good lawyers lose credibility in a trial not because they intentionally mislead but because they make a statement that they believe is true at the time and it is not.”

Preparation can then clear your working memory to focus on the task at hand. In Boies’ case, he is never caught off-guard by anything during a trial, as happens to so many attorneys. He has seen everything before, and as he says “there are no surprises.” He can focus on his story, on his goals, and not get distracted.

Dealing with Test Anxiety, Part 1 - Why We "Choke"

By Kevin Sherrill

Do you have problems with test anxiety? Would you like to perform your best on your law school exams, or in any high-pressure situation? Well then I have something for you. 

 
Last year I gave a presentation on how to deal with performance anxiety. It was based on the paper that I am going to post here in several parts. This first part is the much shorter section on why people fail in pressure situations. Subsequent sections will deal with what we can do about these anxieties.


Enjoy, I hope it can help, and even be a little entertaining!

The Art of Being Clutch: How to Perform Your Best on Exams and Avoid the Choke 

It was my junior year in high school. I had been playing golf for a few years now, but I was playing in my first real competition of consequence. I was playing in the qualifying tournament to make the varsity golf squad at my high school. If I finished in the top three, I would make the team. If I didn’t, I would have to try and qualify again months down the road.

Despite it being my first real tournament, I played well. I suppose I went in thinking I wouldn’t have a chance, that the players who had made the team before would do the same now. But after making a birdie on the 8th hole of the 9-hole competition, I found myself 2 strokes ahead for the final spot.

I saw my next closest competitor as I was leaving the 8th hole green. He said something to the effect of “OK, let’s see what you got.” It finally hit me that I had a real chance to make the team. As I teed up on the ninth hole, a par 3, I was nervous. Real nervous. Lining the left side of the fairway was a giant net that separated the course from the neighboring driving range. I looked at that and thought, OK, just don’t hit it over there. My first tee shot was pulled way left, out of bounds into the bordering driving range. My second attempt landed in just about the same spot. With my chances of making the team nearly gone, and thus the pressure off, my third try landed safely on the green. I made my put, and took my score of 8, and left the green. I wasn’t disappointed, I was mad. Mad that I had let my chance get away.

So why did I choke when the pressure was on? What could I have done differently? Most importantly, what can I learn from this incident that might help myself, and others, perform at their best when the pressure is on? In particular, is there anything students can do to insure peak performance on law school exams or the bar exam? While this is a very complicated issue, there are some very simple techniques and solutions that may be utilized.

Why we Choke

Working memory is the essential key to most cognitive functions, and a law school exam or bar exam is no exception. Working memory is what we use to analyze information, evaluate potential outcomes, and eventually solve problems. It is also where our “internal monologue” takes place, and where our worries and stresses reside.

We also might draw information from our procedural or long term, memory. This is where we store the things we have “committed to memory.”

The problem arises when a student’s working memory is compromised. There are numerous ways this can happen. For example, if a student is aware of a certain stereotype, it can bring down their performance. How? By just being aware of the stereotype, a certain portion of the student’s working memory is occupied by that awareness, and possibly worry. By reducing working memory, the exam becomes more difficult than it should be.

This is a greatly simplified explanation of why students choke, but essentially students fail to perform their best when their working memory is compromised. This is exactly what happened to me in my golf tournament. I played great when there was no pressure, when my working memory was solely focused on my play. When I began to worry about whether I would make the team, whether I would be able to continue my great play, that occupied a certain portion of my working memory, and I was done.

Another, much more famous example of how compromised working memory can affect performance, and the ability to be clutch, is Tiger Woods. As many people know, Woods is perhaps the greatest golfer of all time. More than just being great at the game of his choosing however, Woods was beyond clutch, pulling out his best performances when it counted the most. This clutch ability was best on display during the 2008 U.S. Open, which Woods won in a playoff after playing 91 total holes. Woods won this tournament despite having a knee injury so serious that it required reconstructive surgery, and would keep Woods out of competition for months. “He beat everybody on one leg,” competitor Kenny Perry would say after the tournament.

Soon after this triumph, everything fell apart for Woods. A well-publicized scandal regarding Wood’s private life hit the media. Woods had to deal with the public humiliation, but also lost endorsement deals and eventually faced a divorce from his wife. Woods has not won a major championship tournament since the scandal. In fact, in 2009, Woods choked for the first time in his professional career. Woods led on the final day of the 2009 PGA Championship tournament, yet lost the tournament to little-know Y.E. Yang. This was the first time Woods ever lost a major championship tournament after holding a lead on the final day of play.

This need for total focus and a lack of distractions is not just apparent in sports. David Boies is one of the greatest trial attorneys in the country. He attributes much of his success to his massive amount of preparation (discussed later on), but also (relatedly) on his ability to focus. In defending a $4.2 billion lawsuit against his client, he continually remained focused on the task at hand. In the years leading up to the trial, between $75 and $150 million in legal fees were racked up. Each day in court cost the parties $300,000 in legal fees alone, and the trial lasted almost a month. Not to mention there was $4.2 billion on the line at trial.

Through it all, Boies remained focused. “If you think in those terms, it can be disabling,” he said. “You’ve got to try AIG against SICO just the way you would try a $100,000 case and not a $4.2 billion case, because the principles are the same.” With that said, Boies was totally focused on the task at hand – being prepared for trial. He cancelled his yearly cycling trip to Europe, something he had only done once in 20 years. Leading up to the trial, he only socialized with lawyers on his team or the opposing team – he didn’t want to be distracted from the case for even a minute. In trial, He never thinks about how the trial is going, and never about what is at stake. He focuses only on the moment. How is the evidence coming in? Is the argument he is making working? Is it believable? Is what the other side saying believable? If not, how can he point that out. How the trial is going as a whole “is totally irrelevant.” And this is the key to being clutch – focus on the task at hand, and don’t worry about anything else that may be going on. 

Looking at it from our simplified perspective, Woods lost his ability to be clutch because he was distracted. His focus was gone, his working memory was compromised with doubt, guilt, remorse, and a feeling of being overly self-conscience. These were foreign concepts to the “old” Woods. Boies, on the other hand, always remained focused, prepared and ready. Likewise, a student’s focus and working memory can be compromised by feelings of inadequacy, doubt, unpreparedness, and any number of other thoughts. How can we avoid this?