Performance improves by exporting uneasy feelings before the exam, so as to "be able to produce professional skills"

At the end of this week the University Entrance Examination exam for 2011 will be carried out, but before the examination "What if we do a question from the range where we are not turning?" "What if we forget it" "Some people may worry about from next to next, such as" If it is a ronin to be taken by her "and so on, studying does not come and meals do not go through the throat and sleep at night ... ... .

People who are weak in the scenes that tend to feel such anxiety and are weak against the scene that is "nervous" can not fully demonstrate their performance can be improved by writing out their uneasy feelings on paper just before the examination.

Details are as below.Writing about worries eases anxiety and improves test performance | The University of Chicago

University of ChicagoPsychologistSian L. BeilockExperiments conducted by Associate Professors and others showed that the results were improved by writing out concerns about the test on paper in 10 minutes immediately before the test. Thesis isScienceIt is published in the magazine.

According to Professor Beilock, there are "Working memory"(I remember the questions I just read and short-term memories to memorize expressions and numbers in the process of calculation) are limited, and I feel anxiety about the exams, that working memory gets worried only with concern alone It seems to be getting. By exporting anxiety beforehand before the exam, the working memory that can be used to solve the problem increases.

Professors Beilock et al. Firstly asked 20 subjects of university students to take two sets of mathematical tests. In the first test, I just instructed "I will do my best", but before the second test "A prize is given to the outstanding grades", "If the grades are bad, a joint responsibility will be a joint responsibility as well as a team "The state of the exam was subjected to" pressure "such as video recording and being seen by mathematical instructors". And before this second test, half of the students wrote "Test Anxiety" for 10 minutes, and the control group seemed to sit quietly for 10 minutes.

As a result, in the group quietly sitting just before the exam, the correct answer rate decreased by 12% compared to the first test compared to the second "pressured" test, whereas the group who wrote anxiety before the test In the second test, the correct answer rate improved by 5% over the first test. Moreover, in another experiment, "the act of writing something on paper" has not been effective in relieving tension but in particular, it seems to have been shown that it is effective for "writing about anxiety about the examination".

Next, in the research, we conducted experiments on a ninth grade student (a grade equivalent to 3 years of junior high school in Japan, a freshman of the American high school) who undergo the final exam (biology) in high school life. The students were asked to answer the questionnaire six weeks before the final exam, and it seems that they were evaluated "the feeling of anxiety about the test".

And just before the end-of-life test of the creature, when instructing the students who took the seat to write "feelings about the test" or "think about topics not relevant to the test", the students who wrote about the test got higher grades In particular, for students of the type "easy to feel uneasy", the average score of the group who wrote about the tests was "B +", whereas the control group was "B-", where the apparent difference was It is said that it arrived.

Professor Beilock tends to feel uneasy about the examination, "People who can not be profitable in the production" type, those who are anxious about notes etc. by taking time by themselves before the exam, especially without the instruction from the teacher or the test director He says that exporting will improve performance. The act of writing out anxiety like this will be useful in a variety of situations where pressure is felt, such as a presentation to clients at work, a speech before a large number of people, an interview for employment, etc.