●不安を書き出すことでテストの緊張を解く

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サイエンスという雑誌に発表された研究です。
学校のテストについて異常なまでに緊張して実力を発揮できない生徒がいるものです。心配が募るあまり、集中力や記憶力に欠けてしまいます。
そういうタイプの生徒にテスト直前の10分間に、自分のもつ不安に紙に書き出させるという実験を行いました。
「生徒は最悪の事態を想定して書き出すことで、実際はそんなに悪くなるはずがないという安心感をもつはず」という期待と根拠からの実験です。
実験は先ず、何も特別な準備なしに数学のテストを実施し、次に「ただ静かに待つ」グループと「不安を書き出す」グループに分けて行いました。
「出来がよければお金がもらえて、悪ければ逆にチームの責任として罰が与えられる」というプレッシャーまで加えられました。
その実験結果です。
静かに待機した生徒は平均で「普通よりも１２％悪い」得点、しかし不安を書きだした生徒は「普通よりも５％良い」平均得点でした。
このテスト結果では、異常に緊張する生徒でも事前に不安を書き出すことで、緊張しない生徒と変りない成績を出すことができました。
では、テスト直前に書き出す時間など場合は、どうしたらいいのでしょうか？
家や図書館でも同じ（不安を書き出す）練習をすることで改善がみられるはず、と研究者は言います。
Some students get so nervous before a test, they do poorly even if they know the material. Sian Beilock, a psychology professor at the University of Chicago in Illinois, has studied these highly anxious test-takers.
SIAN BEILOCK: “They start worrying about the consequences. They might even start worrying about whether this exam is going to prevent them from getting into the college they want. And when we worry, it actually uses up attention and memory resources. I talk about it as your cognitive horsepower that you could otherwise be using to focus on the exam.”
Professor Beilock and another researcher, Gerardo Ramirez, have developed a possible solution. Just before an exam, highly anxious test-takers spend ten minutes writing about their worries about the test.
SIAN BEILOCK: “What we think happens is when students put it down on paper, they think about the worst that could happen and they reappraise the situation. They might realize it’s not as bad as they might think it was before and, in essence, it prevents these thoughts from popping up — from ruminating — when they’re actually taking a test.”
The researchers tested the idea on a group of twenty anxious college students. They gave them two short math tests. After the first one, they asked the students to either sit quietly or write about their feelings about the upcoming second test.
The researchers added to the pressure. They told the students that those who did well on the second test would get money. They also told them that their performance would affect other students as part of a team effort.
Professor Beilock says those who sat quietly scored an average of twelve percent worse on the second test. But the students who had written about their fears improved their performance by an average of five percent.
Next, the researchers used younger students in a biology class. They told them before final exams either to write about their feelings or to think about things unrelated to the test.
Professor Beilock says highly anxious students who did the writing got an average grade of B+, compared to a B- for those who did not.
SIAN BEILOCK: “What we showed is that for students who are highly test-anxious, who’d done our writing intervention, all of a sudden there was no relationship between test anxiety and performance. Those students most prone to worry were performing just as well as their classmates who don’t normally get nervous in these testing situations.”
But what if students do not have a chance to write about their fears immediately before an exam or presentation? Professor Beilock says students can try it themselves at home or in the library and still improve their performance.
The researchers wrote about their findings in the journal Science.

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