Talk:Test anxiety

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): SimaraX.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 10:54, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 August 2020 and 11 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Softballgirl33.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 10:54, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Copyvio
As a copyvio issue, I marked tihs page with the copyvio tag. However, in my opinion the topic of Test anxiety is one probably worth covering in Wikipedia, so I removed the prod (normally, I would leave the prod and add the copyvio tag if both apply). Mango juice talk 15:20, 19 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The only issuse is that it's copied from a blog that isn't copyright protected. So, it's not a copy-vio, but just a copy and paste. If it was copied of, say, MTV, then we would have a copy-vio issue. Yanksox (talk) 15:26, 19 June 2006 (UTC)


 * My understanding is that copyright needs not be asserted - it's automatic unelss disclaimed. Permission must be explcitly given to wikimedia per Confirmation of permission - CrazyRussian talk/email 15:53, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I have removed the copy-and-paste part of "Accomodations" (see PMID: 9213292) - but haven't checked the rest... If there's more copy-and-paste, someone should delete this article... -- Robodoc.at (talk) 08:43, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Broken link
http://campus.umr.edu/counsel/selfhelp/vpl/testanxiety.htm was broken, and changing umr.edu to mst.edu left it still broken. Charvest (talk) 11:59, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

advertisements
"A recent "accelerated" anxiety-reduction protocol shows promise, having produced substantial anxiety reduction and significant test gains in multiple consecutive studies. Components include vigorous physical involvement, test-adaptive imagery, and counter-conditioning."

All the links just go to www.testanxietycontrol.com which is selling this "accelerated" method. It also uses wording straight from that website, including "accelerated" and "substantial anxiety-reduction". The multiple consecutive studies are not peer-reviewed or published in any journals. It doesn't seem to be sourced correctly in the first place. I'm a little rusty on the rules of Wikipedia but I'm pretty sure none of this belongs in this article. I'm going to delete it for now, feel free to argue for it's inclusion or change it so it fits the rules(if that's even possible). Five- (talk) 14:34, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

"Complimentary therapies such as Emotional Alignment therapy "" may help some sufferers." Here's another one I removed, it just links to a website selling "Emotional Alignment Therapy". If it may help some sufferers, it needs to be sourced. If you search for the term "Emotional Alignment therapy" in quotes on Google's search engine you get 198 results, but nothing resembling a reliable source. Five- (talk) 14:44, 24 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Looking through the article and the edit history, it would seem a good portion of the recent changes were done by DrD001. Looking at his talk page and the Revision history for Panic Attack, there is a theme to his edits.  I'm guessing, DrD001, that you are either Richard Driscoll or someone associated with him?  DrD001 added many links to www.testanxietycontrol.com on this article, which has Driscoll's name and picture at the bottom.  He also added www.amtaa.org, the website for "American Test Anxiety Association" which lists Driscoll as it's Programs Director and advertises the same product as testanxietycontrol.com.  He also added stuff to this article about the "Westside Test Anxiety Scale Validation" which was created by none other than Driscoll.  On the Panic Attack article he tried to add links to www.peacewithmyself.com which is, again, owned by the same guy and links to the previous sites.  Because of this, I have removed all material mentioning any of these sites or the concepts they are trying to sell.  This is original research and against Wikipedia's rules, not to mention the other various rules that are broken.  I looked through the stuff and none of studies are published or peer-reviewed anyways, so even if it wasn't an advertisement ploy or original research by the author, it's not a reliable source.  I left an external link to amtaa.org since it's a little relevant to the article. Five- (talk) 16:29, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Cognitive Psychology Project
As part of a class on Cognitive Psychology at Davidson College, we were assigned to edit a Wikipedia page related to our course material. We plan to incorporate up-to-date studies and peer reviewed literature on test anxiety, in relation to working memory.

Our next step involves deciding whether to edit the current page's section on working memory, or creating a new page. We value your opinion in regards to this matter. We are looking at the relationship between working memory and test errors. We are also looking at important variables such as stereotype threat, attention, achievement goals, and cultural difference. AmandaSilver15 (talk) 00:21, 18 February 2013 (UTC)Erin122 (talk) 00:09, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I have commented in several of your companion projects. I would say that it is better to create a new section in this article since I do not think there is enough content to create a new page. Additionally: after a fast check of this article I see many sections with problems. For example the section causes is a "how to guide" without references of any kind which would benefit of a copy-edit, references, etc. Anxiety response and symptoms have a lot of overlap and could be combined, whereas the "power of working memory" is a worse as it can be with only one reference, crappy self-help type content, and also some smell of copyright problems... In summary this article would probably benefit more from some elimination and clean up of its content by adding new sources than from adding lots of new content. Best regards.--Garrondo (talk) 13:34, 18 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Garrondo, thank you so much for your helpful feedback. We plan to align our revision with the goals of this assignment as dictated by our professor. If it is at all helpful, here is our course page on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Program:Davidson_College/Cognitive_Psychology_(2013_Q1). We are currently looking into how we will incorporate specific peer-reviewed articles, as well as secondary and review sources into the working memory section. Thanks! AmandaSilver15 (talk) 00:16, 25 February 2013 (UTC) Erin122 (talk) 00:18, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Great. Keep me (and everybody else) posted by commenting any advances here. That way you will probably get to better results and also a much more rewarding wikipedia experience. Bests.--Garrondo (talk) 08:32, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi Amanda and Erin! Please, avoid as much as you can WP:primary sources - use secondary and tertiary sources instead!  Lova Falk     talk   09:35, 25 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the great feedback. We are relying mostly on review sources instead of primary source studies, and have an initial outline for our new section on Working Memory.


 * Introduction: a few sentences summarizing the overall concept
 * Brief background on working memory
 * Brief background on test anxiety
 * Theories using Working Memory (Attentional Control Theory)
 * Interventions using WMC techniques


 * AmandaSilver15 (talk) 23:21, 17 March 2013 (UTC) and Erin122 (talk)


 * Amanda&Ering: Thanks for the feedback. Communications is very helpful here. It would be great if you could add the sources you are planning to use (as most of your class mates have done). It will help to have a grasp on what you are planning to do. Also: Do your sources explicitly link working memory and test anxiety and its treatments? Finally, I would say that since the article is not in very good shape (lots of unreferenced or poorly referenced sections, original research, etc) it would be great if instead of adding lots of content you also used the sources you already have to improve the current estate of the article. We will continue talking with your progresses.Bests.--Garrondo (talk) 12:28, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Copyright problems and clean up of the article
I have just checked the management section and it is a clear infrigement of copyright. Really close paraprhasing of the source. Additionally its tone was completely un-encyclopedic (How to guide, self-help book tone), and poorly referenced (to a website of a patient association). I have eliminated the section completely and retitled the "reduction" section to management.

I have also moved the "contributing factors" section to the causes section and moved management into a subsection of treatment

I have separated section on casues and signs and symptoms.

I hope this editions make easier edits by the class project.

--Garrondo (talk) 14:00, 18 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Garrondo! CogPsyProf (talk) 23:11, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Working memory section to talk page
I am moving section on working memory to talk page since it had so many problems that it was mostly useless. It was only based on a single book, with some "self promotion" tone. Moreover there is no indication that this book or theory was notable enought to merit so much content. It also lacked any kind of wikipedia format. If this content is to be re-formatted and re-inserted in the article it will need a complete rewritting, and use of better references.

I Forgot to sign:--Garrondo (talk) 14:25, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Power of Working Memory
The cognitive component of test anxiety is widely believed to have a negative impact on test performance through occupying working memory space. When a student is worrying about failing the test or not having the correct answer to a question, they are using up valuable working memory space in the brain. This leaves less space for the working memory to remember facts and concepts that were learned. Therefore, the student is more likely to perform worse in high stress situations. Sian Beilock is the author of the book “Choke: What the secrets of the brain reveal about getting it right when you have to.” She examines why people who do well in practice, but “choke” in stressful situations. She says our “working memory plays an important role in most of what we do on a daily basis” Remembering a phone number or navigating while driving, all involve working memory processes. The amount of working memory a person has (it varies among individuals) often predicts how well they will perform in activities that are imperative for academic success (i.e. problem solving and reading comprehension). Surprisingly, high-powered students have been found to perform at the level of low-powered students when under pressure. So why do students with the most working memory fail under pressure? Beilock found that under low-stress conditions, high-working memory individuals are likely to go through all the steps required in order to problem solve because they have the high cognitive power needed to compute answers this way. On the other hand, individuals with lower working memory were likely to rely on shortcuts to answer similar questions, which don’t require a lot of effort and are essentially no better than good guesses. Under pressure however, the majority of high powered- students were found to panic and switch to the short cuts that low power students normally use. When a student experiences test anxiety, the anxiety they are feeling takes up valuable working memory space, preventing an individual from accessing their full problem solving approaches. Sometimes they end up taking “short cuts” or making guesses which leads to poorer test performance when it counts the most.

Problems with layout in recent edits within school project
@SteveREBT, I notice that you have began to edit the article. I have found several problems with your citation system. I'll try to explain myself and help you to improve layout in future edits.

The main problem is how you have added several different references inside a single inline citation. In the second case maaaaaany references inside one. Most commonly different references go in different citations. I imagine that this is your way to try to cite several times the same reference without repeating it. There is an easy way to do this, but it is not how you did it. You can find how to do it in one of the leaflets linking from the course page, specifically the Referencing: Wikicode handout. It explains there how to cite multiple times the same reference. I have corrected the first citation.Please correct the second one in the same way.

Moreover: while I have found the citation for Cassidy, there is no citation in the article with a McDonald in it so I have eliminated it.

--Garrondo (talk) 21:06, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Problems with sources in recent edits within school project
Preliminary note: What I am going to recommend is wikipedia policy on sources, which your teacher has assured me that has been explained in class. Specifically secondary sources (reviews or meta-analysis in peer-reviewed journals or advanced manuasl for professionals) should be used instead of primary sources (experiments in peer reviewed journals). I know that following this rule most of the sources in this article are not really valid: this is a truth in wikipedia, what should be is not in many cases what one founds. This, however is no reason for you using secondary sources and even improving the ones used in the article.

I have taken a look at the sources inserted (the two that I corrected: Cassidy 2001 and Hembree 1988). None of them are ideal sources.

Cassidy 2001: From what I can see it is a primary article in which a measure of school anxiety is presented. This is CLEARLY NOT a valid reference since it is a primary one.

Hembree 1988: is a metaanalisis. Therefore it is a secondary source, and could be very valid. My main concern is the age of the source. I would rather have a newer ref if you find one, although is muuuuuuuuuch better than Cassidy 2001.

I hope that from now on you select high quality SECONDARY sources.

Best regards. --Garrondo (talk) 21:27, 19 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I mistakenly thought that this additions were related to university psychology project. I was yesterday corrected on this issue and on the fact that SteveREBT editions are not connected to the students of Davidson project. While comments to SteveREBT still apply and might be useful to editors from Davidson project I am sorry for my mistake and any inconveniences it has created. --Garrondo (talk) 17:16, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

New section for Working Memory and Test Anxiety
Here is the first draft for the new article that will link to this page, which we have entitled "Test Anxiety and Working Memory." This is part of our cognitive psychology class project, as we noted in our earlier plan submissions. We appreciate all feedback, but please note that this draft will be peer reviewed by classmates within the next week and is not yet final.

Working memory is essential for understanding the phenomenon of test anxiety. Working memory is a limited capacity system, so the addition of stress and anxiety reduce the resources available to focus on relevant information. By identifying cognitive interventions, it is possible to reverse the effects of test anxiety.

Test Anxiety: The goal of most testing situations is to measure a person’s level of knowledge or skill in a particular area. If the testing situation itself becomes a factor in that person’s ability to reach optimal achievement, there can be negative consequences, especially if certain groups are disproportionally affected. Test Anxiety refers to impaired performance created by feelings of stress and discomfort in evaluative situations.

Liebert and Morris attributed this to two main components: worry and emotionality. Worry refers to cognitive factors, such as negative expectations or feelings of inadequacy. Emotionality is the physical symptoms, such as increased heart rate, muscle tension, or butterflies. Both are aversive elements that can create anxiety, but it is the cognitive factors that have the strongest connection to performance.

Numerous studies have suggested that highly test-anxious subjects describe themselves in more negative terms, report that they experience more performance related thoughts during an exam, and are generally more self-blaming and self-concerned than low-anxious subjects. These negative factors consume a person’s attention with what is referred to as task-irrelevant activity.

Working memory: It is important to understand the elements of working memory before connecting them to test anxiety. The model of working memory was developed to improve the understanding of the short-term memory system as originally proposed by psychologists Baddeley and Hitch. The central executive, phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, and episodic buffer are the main mechanisms that work together to allow temporary storage and early processing of information. As indicated by the diagram, the central executive allocates attentional resources to other components. The phonological loop refers to the temporary storage of verbal information, and the visuospatial sketchpad is responsible for the storage of visual information. The episodic buffer integrates this information into a form that makes sense.

As you are reading this page, you are using many different elements of your working memory. Currently, your visuospatial sketchpad is helping you make sense of the spatial relationships between words, while the phonological loop is helping you verbalize the words in your head. This is possible with the help of the central executive, which guides your attention to the words on the page, and coordinates the other elements of your working memory. It also communicates with the episodic buffer, which keeps track of the information and combines it into coherent sentences. This is an example of a person’s working memory performing effectively, but these functions do not always perform their best under stressful situations, like testing.

Working Memory and Emotion: As discussed previously, people who suffer from test anxiety are more likely to experience negative cognitions while in evaluative situations. It is these thoughts and emotions that interfere with the central executive, and create distracting task-irrelevant activity. This is especially important because test anxious persons have been shown to bias their attention towards threatening and anxiety related stimuli more than nonemotional stimuli.

According to the attentional capture hypothesis, emotional stimuli are very difficult to tune out. They will often dominate a person’s thoughts, and any attempt to suppress them demands working memory resources. If the central executive is dividing resources between the aversive cognitions and the task-relevant material, the person’s ability to use the relevant information on a test will suffer.

Attentional Control Theory of Working Memory: A recent theory involving anxiety and working memory is the Attentional Control theory. Based on the earlier Processing Control Theory, this theory assumes that anxiety largely impairs the processing efficiency aspect of working memory rather than the performance effectiveness component. Processing efficiency refers to the amount of resources used to attain effective performance. Therefore, this theory suggests that students high in test anxiety will have to allocate more resources to the task at hand than non-test anxiety students in order to achieve the same results.

Attentional Control Theory: also assumes that anxiety primarily affects functioning of the central executive component of working memory rather than the phonological loop or visuospatial sketchpad. Specifically anxiety affects the attentional control aspect of the central executive and its inhibition and attentional shifting functions. Attentional control is the balance between the two attentional systems, the goal-directed system and the stimulus-driven system. Research suggests that anxiety disrupts the balance between the two systems, therefore causing a reduction in the processing efficiency of the central executive.

Anxiety and Working Memory Capacity: There has been some research to support the theory that individuals with a high working memory capacity are somewhat buffered against the effects of performance anxiety. A study by Johnson and Gronlund found that individuals' performances on a task showed a significant decrease in accuracy when the participant had low or average working memory capacity, but did not significantly decrease when the participant had a high level of working memory. Further research has found that participants with both lower working memory capacity and high test anxiety made more errors.

Interventions Using Working Memory Related Techniques: One cognitive intervention that has been shown to be effective at reducing anxiety is attentional cognitive bias modification. The main method used for the intervention is a dot probe task. In this method, participants view negative and neutral stimuli on a screen and respond only to the neutral stimulus. This method attempts to overcome the attentional bias shown by high anxiety participants, who tend to focus on the more potent negative stimuli rather than the neutral stimuli. When participants are trained to focus on the neutral stimuli while ignoring the negative stimuli, working memory capacity is less strained and is available to place more focus on the task at hand.

Cognitive interventions in general do have many limitations. Some cognitive strategies have even been shown to be detrimental to performance, particularly strategies such as thought suppression. Only a small, recent body of research addresses cognitive interventions, and more research needs to be done to support these new techniques.

References

Erin122 (talk) 02:10, 22 March 2013 (UTC)AmandaSilver15 (talk) 02:10, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi Erin and Amanda! I must admit I have only glanced through your proposal, but I have a couple of remarks.


 * Please don't use textbook-like sentences such as: "As you are reading this page". It is not "encyclopedic".
 * Also, please, please never ever use "ibid" as a reference. Other editors come along, add and remove text and before you know it, nobody knows what "ibid" refers to. If you don't know how to make double references, just copy the whole reference once more, so at least it is clear which reference you mean.
 * Please add page numbers of the books you have used.
 * interpunction: first . then the reference (for instance: ...at hand. )
 * Please create subsections for more clarity
 * Use wikilinks for "difficult terms" such as central executive
 * Finally, please don't be discouraged by this list of remarks! With friendly regards,  Lova Falk     talk   13:17, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the feedback Lova Falk. We will make the corrections you have suggested, and are currently working on revising our entry to reflect some more up to date research. We are exploring more topic-specific research that better explains the connection between working memory and test anxiety/ performance. We have decided not to make a separate page, but instead to add a working memory section to this page, with relevant subsections. The changes will be made this week, as our final entry is due on April 19th. Thanks again for taking the time to help us out! AmandaSilver15 (talk) 00:24, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Final draft ready to move to main space
Our class project for Cognitive Psychology has been peer edited, and looked at by our professor. We will move it into the main space tomorrow, but we are open to feedback before we do so. Thank you. Erin122 (talk) 19:42, 17 April 2013 (UTC)AmandaSilver15 (talk) 19:53, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Working Memory and Test Anxiety Working memory is essential for understanding the phenomenon of test anxiety. Working memory is a limited capacity system, so the addition of stress and anxiety reduce the resources available to focus on relevant information. By identifying cognitive interventions, it is possible to reverse the effects of test anxiety.

The goal of most testing situations is to measure a person’s level of knowledge or skill in a particular area. If the testing situation itself becomes a factor in that person’s ability to reach optimal achievement, there can be negative consequences, especially if certain groups are disproportionally affected. Test anxiety refers to impaired performance created by feelings of stress and discomfort in evaluative situations.

Psychologists Liebert and Morris attributed test anxiety to two main components: worry and emotionality. Worry refers to cognitive factors, such as negative expectations or feelings of inadequacy, and emotionality is the physical symptoms, such as increased heart rate, muscle tension, or butterflies. Both are aversive elements that can create anxiety, but it is the cognitive factors that have the strongest connection to performance.



It is important to understand the elements of working memory before connecting them to test anxiety. Baddeley's model of working memory was developed to improve the understanding of the short-term memory system. The central executive, phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, and episodic buffer are the main mechanisms that work together to allow temporary storage and early processing of information. As indicated by the diagram, the central executive allocates attentional resources to other components. The phonological loop refers to the temporary storage of verbal information, and the visuospatial sketchpad is responsible for the storage of visual information. The episodic buffer holds information temporarily, and integrates it back to the central executive.

Working Memory and Emotion As discussed previously, people who suffer from test anxiety are more likely to experience negative cognitions while in evaluative situations. It is these thoughts and emotions that interfere with the central executive and create distracting task-irrelevant activity which uses working memory resources. This is especially important because test anxious persons have been shown to bias their attention towards threatening and anxiety related stimuli more than nonemotional stimuli.

According to the attentional capture hypothesis, emotional stimuli are very difficult to tune out. They will often dominate a person’s thoughts, and any attempt to suppress them demands working memory resources. If the central executive is dividing resources between the aversive cognitions and the task-relevant material, the person’s ability to use the relevant information on a test will suffer.

Attentional Control Theory of Working Memory A recent theory involving anxiety and working memory is the Attentional Control Theory. Based on the earlier Processing Control Theory, this theory assumes that anxiety largely impairs the processing efficiency aspect of working memory rather than the performance effectiveness component. Processing efficiency refers to the amount of resources used to attain effective performance. Therefore, this theory suggests that students high in test anxiety will have to allocate more resources to the task at hand than non-test anxiety students in order to achieve the same results.

Attentional Control Theory also assumes that anxiety primarily affects functioning of the central executive component of working memory rather than the phonological loop or visuospatial sketchpad. Specifically anxiety affects the attentional control aspect of the central executive and its inhibition and attentional shifting functions. Attentional control is the balance between the two attentional systems, the goal-directed system and the stimulus-driven system. Research suggests that anxiety disrupts the balance between the two systems, therefore causing a reduction in the processing efficiency of the central executive.

Pressure and Performance Theories There are are two central theories that attempt to explain compromised performance. The first theory is called Distraction Theory. This theory states that high-pressure environments create a dual-task situation, in which the person’s attention is divided between the task at hand and unhelpful thoughts about the situation and possible negative consequences of poor performance. The irrelevant thoughts compete for working memory resources, which reduces the efficiency of their memory retrieval often leading to “choking under pressure.”.

According to a different theory, when a person is expected to perform a specific skill, the pressure may cause an increased self-consciousness and inward focus, which can disrupt their ability to successfully perform that task. This is called Explicit Monitoring Theory, which says that thinking about step-by-step procedures can inhibit one’s ability to execute a task. For example, a study by R. Gray found that baseball players put into the high-pressure condition had increased errors, and an increased ability to recall details like the direction their bat was moving. This indicates that the pressured players were monitoring themselves more, which impacted their ability to successfully hit the ball.

Individual Differences in Working Memory

Working Memory Capacity When people are in high-stakes situations, it impacts individual performance in some unexpected ways. In general, people with higher working memory capacity do better on academic tasks, but this changes when people are under pressure. A study by Beilock et. al tested participants using a modular arithmetic test to conclude that adding pressure will actually decrease the performance of those with high-working memory, but will not lower the performance of those with low-working memory. In other words, those with higher working-memory capacity are more vulnerable in anxiety-producing situations. This occurs because people with high WM are more likely to use cognitively demanding procedures to solve the problems. These difficult procedures require greater working memory resources, which have difficulty competing with the increase in task-irrelevant interferences. These findings clearly demonstrate the relationship between stressful situations and individual working memory capacity.

These findings carry over to the specific phenomenon of mathematical anxiety. Students are said to experience math anxiety if their negative emotional reactions towards doing math leads to poor performance, lower than their actual skill level. It is especially problematic because their anxiety overwhelms their working memory, making it difficult apply the cognitive resources needed to solve challenging math problems.

There has been some research to support the theory that individuals with a high working memory capacity are somewhat buffered against the effects of performance anxiety. A study by Johnson and Gronlund found that individuals' performances on a task showed a significant decrease in accuracy when the participant had low or average working memory capacity, but did not significantly decrease when the participant had a high level of working memory. Further research has found that participants with both lower working memory capacity and high test anxiety made more errors.

Category Learning It is not possible to understand the relationship between working memory and test anxiety without exploring the types of learning situations that require working memory resources. Decaro et. al tested the effects of different task categories on the performance of both high and low working memory individuals. The categories were either rule-based, which relies heavily on working memory, and information-integration, which incorporates more procedural methods. The data show that those with high levels of working memory excelled at rule-based tasks, and those with low working memory excelled at information-integration tasks. When attempting to do procedural tasks, it was the individuals with high WM were less successful then those with low WM. This indicates that the type of task is an important factor when examining working memory and performance.

Pressure Situation Many have asked the question: which is more accurate, the Distraction Theory, or the Explicit Monitoring Theory? The full answer is still in need of future exploration, but preliminary research demonstrates the importance of how the individual perceives their evaluative situation. The two types include: monitoring pressure, in which an individual’s performance is negatively impacted if they perceive that they are being watched by an audience, and outcome pressure, in which an individual’s performance suffers because they are thinking about the implications of the test’s consequences and results. Decaro et. al incorporated the earlier findings on category learning to test this phenomenon. They found that rule-based performance was hurt by outcome pressure, but not monitoring pressure, while information-integration performance was hurt by monitoring pressure, but not outcome pressure. In other words, outcomes pressure influences performance on tasks that are reliant on working memory, while monitoring pressure negatively impacts tasks that are more procedural. These findings indicate that performance is compromised in different ways depending on the type of task, and the types of pressure. Knowing this, it is possible to pinpoint the exact type of test-anxiety that an individual is experiencing, in order to find the best solution for enhancing their performance.

Interventions Using Working Memory Related Techniques One cognitive intervention that has been shown to be effective at reducing anxiety is attentional cognitive bias modification. The main method used for the intervention is a dot-probe paradigm. In this method, participants view negative and neutral stimuli on a screen and respond only to the neutral stimulus. This method attempts to overcome the attentional bias shown by high anxiety participants, who tend to focus on the more potent negative stimuli rather than the neutral stimuli. When participants are trained to focus on the neutral stimuli while ignoring the negative stimuli, working memory capacity is less strained and is available to place more focus on the task at hand.

Cognitive interventions in general do have many limitations. Some cognitive strategies have even been shown to be detrimental to performance, particularly strategies such as thought suppression. Only a small, recent body of research addresses cognitive interventions, and more research needs to be done to support these new techniques.

Problem with ref format and other required improvements
First of all let me praise you for the choice of references you have made: most of them are high quality secondary sources which are great for use in wikipedia. Well done!!! However you have several problems with ref citations in the test anxiety article, the most important one that every time you add a citation to the same ref you create a separate ref. You can take a look to the articles or talk to some of your class mates such as the authors of the deep dyslexia article to learn how to fix this (I do not have time at the moment to explain, altough I will try later)

I have also found several writting-style problems in which the authors draw their own conclussions without an specific source, in an essay-like tone. These are mild cases of WP:NOR and should be either eliminated, reformatted or included with a source that specifically draws that conclussions. It is incorrect to draw any conclussions from primary sources unless they are estated as such in them (and even in such cases with great care). I have tagged most of the problems with a tag, although in many of them it would be more interesting to simply eliminate those sentences.

Other format problems
Examples from other articles, but issues apply


 * Bolding: there is a specific style wikipedia guideline (See WP:MOS) which is overly specific and detailed and boring for recent editors. It has a section on bolding (See WP:MOSBOLD). In summary, bolding is only occassionally used in Wikipedia. All in-text bolding should be removed.


 * References should be after the sentence and not before the full stop (e.g forcing reading to proceed through the semantic route [2]. should be changed to forcing reading to proceed through the semantic route.[2]), and same occurs with other punctuation marks such as commas (e.g change be a more severe form of phonological dyslexia[8][9][10] to  be a more severe form of phonological dyslexia;[8][9][10])


 * Titles of sections: should be in sentence case (only first word with starting capital letter)

On a side note

 * Automatic citations: You might not know that you can automatically create references from scientific journals by inserting the pubmed number (pmid) or digital object identifier (doi): go to the editing toolbar, click cite, click templates, click cite journal and insert either of the two identifiers in its appropiate place, and voila!: you have your citation. It has the advantage that it reduces errors (although it is better checking since sometimes it makes some mistakes) and also gives a link to the article abstract direcly when you go with the mouse over the inline citation or at the reference at the end of an article. For example in the case of Jones-1985- article Deep dyslexia, imageability, and ease of predication just by inserting its doi (10.1016/0093-934X(85)90094-X), obtained from either pubmed (pmid:3971130 see or the publishing house abstract to the article (See ) I get (in this case using doi):. You might notice that gives an error in the year that you can easily fix and have:. I am not sure if I have explained myself adequately but these kind of things make editing muuuuuuuuuuuch easier, so if you did not really understood my explanation please ask.

--Garrondo (talk) 07:56, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Section eliminated
I have eliminated all discussion of Baddeleys model: while it is an important model the details it includes were not discussed in any other place in the article, so they are actually irrelevant. See WP:fork. It should be enough to have a line with a link towards the model. --Garrondo (talk) 08:01, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I am not so sure about that. I'll see what I'll do...  Lova Falk     talk   05:21, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Information on Baddeleys model is back - even though somewhat shorter than before. Garrondo, please check if you think it should be expanded... 	[[Image:Wink.png|25px]]  Lova Falk     talk   08:12, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program course assignment
This article is the subject of an educational assignment at Davidson College supported by WikiProject Psychology and the Wikipedia Ambassador Program&#32;during the 2013 Q1 term. Further details are available on the course page.

The above message was substituted from by PrimeBOT (talk) on 16:00, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

12 percentile below their peers
"Highly test-anxious students score about 12 percentile points below their low anxiety peers."

Does this statistic adjust for various factors (such as skill), or is this just the raw data? Please clarify. 78.100.168.220 (talk) 17:26, 28 May 2023 (UTC)