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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 31, 1978)
you worry a ■ bout exams weeks in ad vance? Have trouble con centrating when you study? Before, during and after exam week, do you show such signs of stress as rapid heartbeat, nausea or dizzi ness? If so, you just might have a condition known as “test anxiety.” College psychologists studying this phenomenon over the past few years estimate that 20 percent of all college students have intil the last possible mo nent, because studying on y reminds you how much /ou have yet to learn. If you are having prob ems studying or taking ests, you should seek help ;rom your campus counsel ing center. Don’t waste val uable time trying to study harder; if test anxiety is your problem, more study ing won’t help. Iliuuti aiv ivji uuA j iety—enough to lowertheir . grade point averages by * one full point. As many as > half of these students may have anxiety serious enough to require treatment in the form of behavior modi- j fication. One psychologist who pioneered in the diagnosis and treatment of test anx iety is Dr. Richard M. Suinn. head of the Depart i ment of Psychology at Col orado State University in Fort Collins and psychol ogist for the U.S. Olympic \ Ski Team. Suinn is quick to em phasize that some degree of anxiety is good. “Mod erate anxiety can facilitate maximum performance by leading to increased moti vation, heightened alert ness and greater concen I !' irauon, ne says. Dr. Carol Schneider of Colorado University’s Student Health Center puts it this way, “If you don’t have enough anxiety, you don’t study. If too much, you perform badly despite good preparation.” What causes test anxiety'.’ As with many stress-related conditions, the causes are varied: your teachers and parents may expect too much, you may be an over-achiever, you may have an excessive need to please people or too much fear of failure. Lower-than-expected grades and occasional panic are not necessarily indicators of test anxiety. For ex ample, suppose you came from a small high school where the academic demands were relaxed, where you were number one without having to try very hard. Suddenly, you Find yourself in a college environment where your classmates are the pick of big-city high schools, where the courses are tough and faculty de mands high, where competition is Fear and Trembling at Exam Time great and grading is hard. You Jind yourself struggling to get “C’s” in stead of the “A’s” you were used to. Your lower grades may or may not be attributable to test anxiety. However, you might be among the test-anxious if you display someofthe following symptoms: • Midway through a test, you tind yourself looking around, wondering how other people are doing, worrying about failing the test and wondering what will happen if you do. • When you read test questions, the words are meaningless. You have tc re-read the questions two and three times to comprehend them. • During tests you are plotting way; to escape—sneaking out, turning in; blank test, fainting. • You often wish you were out o school and working—especially jus before tests. • You panic as time runs out durinj • You postpone studying for exam Putting Your Anxiety To Rest The most popular tech nique for easing test anxi ety is called “systematic desensitization.” This is a form of behavior modifica tion originally developed by Dr. Joseph Wolpe. a psychiatrist at Temple Uni versity, to treat phobias. Desensitization helps stu dents unlearn a destructive behavior pattern and re place it with a constructive and beneficial one—or in this case to replace their anxiety reactions with re laxation and calm. The program consists of three steps: the first step is learning to relax deeply and completely; next, through “hierarchy construction” and desensitization itself, stu dents are taught to repro duce deep relaxation in situations that normally a rouse anxiety. The first step, muscle re laxation, is effective tor the simple reason that a person cannot have incompatible responses occurring si multaneously. You cannot be tense, and relaxed at the same time. This step involves isometric-like tensing of muscle groups (biceps, shoulders, chest) followed by relaxa tion of these same groups. Another part of the relaxation training is rhythmic breathing; takingslow,deep breaths helps replace tension with feelings of calm and control. All of these exercises demonstrate the con trast between tension and relaxation, making students more aware of phys ical tensions and better able to defuse tension before it builds up. l Once the student can successfully relax his muscles at will, he is ready for f the next step: learning to deal with t conditions which trigger feelings of anxiety. i The student is instructed to use his relaxation skills while a threatening s continued on page 20
