25th October 2012 9:00
By Blue Tutors
The British Journal of Psychology has published research which suggests that anxiety improves students’ performance in exams. The study of 12-14 year olds involved a questionnaire which established how anxious students felt, and compared the results with their performance in tests which required complex memory skills. Where students had a generally good memory, the results linked feelings of anxiety to better results.
The report also highlighted that students with poorer memories did significantly worse when experiencing heightened feelings of anxiety. The study concluded that students with good memories can be taught to use their anxiety to their advantage, and students with poor memories can be given strategies to reduce anxiety as far as possible.
These results will be useful to private tutors who are often the key source of advice for their students when it comes to the emotions and stress surrounding exams. Whilst many tutors advise their students that anxiety helps them perform better, they can now identify which students would benefit from using their heightened anxiety to enhance their performance, and which students need help in reducing the amount of exam-based anxiety as much as possible.