Practice testing (i.e., practice retrieval) has been established as an effective learning strategy. Uncovering potential factors influencing self-testing usage is a prerequisite to promote its practical use. The present study reports five experiments exploring whether test anxiety (TA) and test stake (1) affect self-testing usage (Experiments 1-5)…

Practice testing is a powerful tool to consolidate long-term retention of studied information, facilitate subsequent learning of new information, and foster knowledge transfer. However, practitioners frequently express the concern that tests are anxiety-inducing and that their employment in the classroom should be minimized. The current review…

Assessment specialists expend a great deal of energy to promote valid inferences from test scores gathered in low-stakes testing contexts. Given the indirect effect of perceived test importance on test performance via examinee effort, assessment practitioners have manipulated test instructions with the goal of increasing perceived test importance.…

The primary purpose of assessment in an instructional setting is twofold: to determine whether learners have achieved the stated objectives and learner outcomes described in the curriculum and to determine whether educators meet those learning objectives in the classroom. Assessment, quite often, is administered in the form of a written or…

We investigated processes underlying performance decrements of highly test-anxious persons. Three experiments contrasted conditions that differed in the degree of activation of concepts related to failure. Participants memorized a list of words either containing words related to failure or containing no words related to failure in Experiment 1. In…

Standardized testing time often creates a nervous atmosphere in classrooms. In past years one of the authors joined a chorus of teachers singing her own woes about the infamous test. She increased her daily caffeine intake, lost sleep, and became a nervous, crazed teacher who had turned her classroom into a test prep center. Her aha moment came…

Throughout this action research project report, the teacher-researchers explored the problem of test anxiety among students. The purpose of this project was to alleviate test anxiety among students with various interventions in grades five through seven in the subject areas of social studies, science, and language arts. There were 66 student…

ESL students struggle to represent accurately on tests what they know. Understanding what constitutes equitable testing practices in university settings for ESL students poses a significant challenge to educators. This study reports on the content analysis of semi-structured interview data obtained from 13 university-level ESL students on their…

According to the Memory for Past Test (MPT) heuristic, judgments of learning (JOLs) may be based, in part, on memory for the correctness of answers on a previous test. The authors explored MPT as the source of the underconfidence with practice effect (UWP; A. Koriat, L. Sheffer, & H. Ma'ayan, 2002), whereby Trial 1 overconfidence switches to …

Questions the effects of tests on children, teachers, school districts, and parents. Advocates a redefinition of current testing practices. (CM)

American schools face pressure to increase their students' test scores. Research reports have shown American students to be particularly stressed over test taking partially because of other outside interests in their lives that also take up time. This paper offers tips to help students relieve stress arising from the testing situation. Students…

An evaluation of a test-retest policy, which was designed to give students a second chance at each exam in introductory psychology courses, showed that it reduced the test anxiety of approximately 80 percent of the students. Students' scores also improved on retests. (RM)

School psychologists face the challenge of completing standardized, multiple choice tests for professional development in order to meet the competency standards set by organizations and regulatory agencies. Research has indicted that adequate preparation in test-taking skills can significantly improve attitudes toward test taking and actual…

This book is designed to help students become better test takers. It helps them feel more confident and less stressed before, during, and after the test. Section 1, "Tests? Blech!" discusses why it is necessary to test students. Section 2, "Test SOS," presents test-taking hints; top secret information about tests and student behavior during tests;…

It is well known among scholars and practitioners that stress and anxiety responses are genuine scientifically measurable reactions to a perceived stressor. It is also common knowledge that high levels of stress and anxiety have a multitude of negative psycho-physiological effects. These effects can contribute to the development of depression and…