The Internal Scream

Overview

Objectives/Goals My project was to see the effect of a teachers verbal statement, prior to beginning a test, on pre-teen students. Methods/Materials Students, specific math test. 7Th grade students were given the exact same math test one week apart. The math teacher handed out each test but what was said before the students began the test was changed. The first time the teacher tried to say a neutral statement to the students so that they were not anxious. The second time the statement was different and was supposed to make the students more anxious. Results The researcher for this experiment actually was able to witness the experiment herself. On the first test, when the teacher did not thoroughly stress the importance of the test, the students sat comfortably in their seats and took the test with ease. On the second test though, when the teacher highly stressed the importance of the test, the students were uncomfortable in their seats, they asked many question to reassure themselves that they new the topic, and they were extremely jittery. The hypothesis was that the students would have lower scores on the second test because their anxiety level would be very high and that this high anxiety would have a negative impact. Through what the researcher saw taking place in the class, the nervousness and agitation of the students, she was almost sure her hypothesis would be correct. But, when the tests were scored, it was clear that the anxiety level was helpful to the students, for when the students knew who the tests were going to and the importance of the test, they immediately tried their absolute hardest and performed better. Conclusions/Discussion My conclusion is that without a certain level of anxiety, it is very difficult to perform well on any test.

Competition history

• CSEF 2009 Cognitive Science (Junior Division Only) · Entry J0611

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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