By Pooja K. Agarwal, Ph.D.

It’s midterm season – eek. When I think about my midterms in high school and college, I remember cramming for high stakes exams, writing last-minute papers, and pulling all nighters to meet deadlines. All that cramming paid off in the short-term (I got pretty good grades), but I retained very little knowledge for the long-term.

How can we support our students during this stressful time and reduce test anxiety? Retrieval practice! It might sound counterintuitive, but think about it this way: the more musicians practice, the better prepared they become for performances. This approach is backed by research: the more students practice retrieval, the more comfortable they become with high-stakes tests.

Continue reading to:

• Learn more about my research on student test anxiety

• Get quick lesson ideas and resources to reduce anxiety

• Find out more about my subscriber-only webinar on October 23, 2024 at 5pm ET

Take a deep breath, watch a puppy cam, and good luck to you and your students!

P.S. Listen to this new podcast episode about retrieval practice that I “created” using AI with two non-human hosts. It’s pretty cool!

Retrieval practice reduces test anxiety

Over the course of 10 years of research in a public school district near St. Louis, Missouri, my colleagues and I surveyed a thousand students about their study habits and test anxiety. We were interested in two key questions:

• Do middle school and high school use the same study strategies as college students?

• Does retrieval practice increase or decrease student test anxiety?

TL;DR

• Yes, 6–12th students use the same study strategies

• Retrieval practice decreased student test anxiety

For our first question about study habits, a lot of research had already been published about how college students study, but there hadn’t been much research looking at when and how those study strategies develop. It was revealing to know that typical study strategies (rereading, highlighting, and cramming) develop much earlier in students’ educational experience. These strategies work in the short-term – research shows it and students know it – but then students forget everything. They have to re-study and we have to re-teach. We recently replicated this finding with students in Brazil, confirming that typical study strategies are universal.

For our second question about test anxiety, our survey was inspired by an understandable concern from teachers: All this retrieval practice sounds like more testing, so doesn’t that increase students’ test anxiety? Actually, no. In our survey of 1,500 students, the vast majority of students (72%) reported that weekly retrieval practice decreased test anxiety.

Why did retrieval practice reduce test anxiety? Because students were better prepared for their exams in terms of their knowledge and they had opportunities to improve their metacognition (thinking about their own thinking). When students use short-term study strategies, like re-reading and highlighting, it creates an “illusion of confidence,” where students think they know more than they actually do. As demonstrated in many peer-reviewed research articles, with retrieval practice, students bring their confidence in line with their accuracy (what we call calibration in the scientific literature). Check out this interview on Instagram with cognitive scientist Dr. Lisa Son and click here to download our PDF guide on metacognition.

Key takeaway: The first time students retrieve shouldn’t be on the midterm or final exam. Give students the opportunity to practice their knowledge before the high-stakes exam, reduce their test anxiety, improve their metacognition, and boost their long-term learning.

Lesson ideas to reduce test anxiety

We’re all short on classroom time. Here are quick activities you can use to engage students in retrieval practice and reduce their test anxiety:

• Add a picture of a golden retriever in your lesson slides! Dogs are cute and everyone can use a moment to smile. Plus, the picture serves as a cue to you and your students to do a quick retrieval (get it?) with a brain dump or two things. (A big thanks to Spanish teacher Andrew S. at Episcopal Academy for this idea.)

• Change your review sessions to retrieve sessions in 5 minutes or less

• Change your study guides to retrieval guides and download our free template from Powerful Teaching

• Have students do a brain dump about their test anxiety and write down their worries

• Provide 3 minutes for deep breathing to boost learning (click here for a YouTube video I use in my classes and click here for a research article on mindfulness and cognition)

• Validate students when they forget or can’t retrieve anything

For students:

• Here’s my list of recommended resources, including blogs and podcasts

• Here’s a list of resources and an article about research on test anxiety from The Learning Scientists

• I also recommend the books Choke by Dr. Sian Beilock and Happiness 101 by Dr. Timothy Bono for students

Exclusive webinar on October 23, 2024

On Wednesday, October 23, 2024 from 5:00 - 6:00pm ET (eastern time zone), I’ll be hosting a free subscriber-only webinar!

New to retrieval practice? Looking for ideas to explore this school year? Have some questions? Join me and educators from around the world for practical tips. The webinar will be recorded, but it’ll be shared exclusively with newsletter subscribers. Click here to subscribe!