Conquering Test Anxiety in a Digital World

Where there are tests, there will be test anxiety. By their very nature, assessments (particularly higher-stakes assessments) cause some elevated stress in students. While some students are better skilled at self-regulating and employing stress to improve their performance, others struggle to manage their interior states. 

We also live in a world where assessments are shifting from paper, pencil, and scantron to screens, keyboards, and mouse clicks. Does this transition to digital testing, particularly with the digital SAT, ACT, and AP exams, mean there will be more test anxiety?

Comfort level with the digital format

Are we seeing a greater degree of test anxiety on these new digital formats? In short, no. 

Taking a test on a computer may seem daunting for some of us, particularly those with less familiarity with digital assessment. Our students, however, are digital natives and have been taking digital assessments in school for years. Many students, in fact, prefer taking a test on a computer or tablet, which is more familiar and comfortable than using a scantron sheet. 

Gaining comfort and familiarity with the respective testing apps

Students are best served by spending time practicing within the digital testing apps for the SAT and the ACT. Within a couple of hours, students can become quite comfortable with a given application: learning where to find the testing tools, how to use or hide the clock, flag questions, find the math formulas, fill in answers, hide or reveal answers, and move the Desmos calculator box around the screen.

Upon mastering these skills, a student’s level of stress tends to decrease. Familiarity breeds comfort. In this light, a student should never take an official test without practicing extensively within the relevant testing application. Practicing in the Bluebook app for College Board tests and the ACT’s website for digital ACTs is a must to gain familiarity with the testing formats and keep anxiety at bay.

Anxiety from adaptive digital testing

When it comes to the SAT – a section-adaptive test – some students have concerns about hitting the threshold of correct answers on the baseline module to progress to the more advanced Higher module, thereby increasing their maximum score potential. The test does not reveal which adaptive module students are taking, so some students worry about whether they have progressed to the Higher or Lower second module: “Things seem easy so far. What module am I in?” Dwelling on this question is not helpful for test performance, and students who are worried about which module they are in are wasting precious cognitive resources.

The key for students is to narrow the blinders and focus on the immediate problem in front of them, again, and again, and again. It’s no different in sports. Worrying about how this particular play may affect the season, or post-season, is not a beneficial use of resources. Better to focus on successfully completing the play at hand. 

On a high-stakes test, students can learn to approach each problem with their complete focus and attention. With practice, they can develop and strengthen this ability, as self-regulation is a teachable and highly transferable skill.

Keep your cool mid-module

Some students experience stress when they are in the middle of a testing section, knowing how much work they have ahead of them. On the SAT, some students feel heightened stress on the command of evidence and inference questions, which fall in the middle of the Reading & Writing module, before the Standard English Conventions (grammar) and Expression of Ideas (transitions, rhetorical synthesis) items. 

For many students, the inference and evidence questions require the highest degree of focus, energy, and time. A popular and effective strategy is to skip these harder, mid-module questions and jump directly to grammar before circling back around. This approach reduces stress about finishing the test, as a student will have already completed the later, generally easier questions before tackling the more advanced content in the middle of the module.

Take it one question at a time: trust the process

Perfection is typically not the goal for most students taking an SAT or ACT or AP exam. You don’t have to be flawless to achieve a highly competitive score. On a given problem, a student may be able to use the answer eliminator and narrow down the answers to two choices. At this point, a student may have to simply guess and let go, moving on to the next question. 

Students need to learn to release the impulse to be perfect, which may cause time-management issues and result in a failure to complete a given module or section.

Students are best served to direct their attention to the question directly before them, supporting themselves with calming and centering messages about their progress (“You’ve got this, 11 down, 16 to go”) and regulating their breath and physical state (posture, muscle tension). Managing stress is an inside job, and students can practice keeping their cool on the hard parts of a test, especially by using practice tests to build up their inner skills and resources.  

General tips and resources for addressing test anxiety

Since I began my training in professional counseling back in 2004, I realized that so many of the techniques I was learning to help therapeutic clients deal with anxiety could be applied to students in high-stress conditions. 

Students can learn to reframe stress, not as something to be feared or avoided, but as something to be harnessed and used in the service of optimal performance. Another technique is to closely monitor self-talk, and invoke your positive, supportive, inner voices, rather than focus on critical self-messages. I outlined some general tips on regulating anxiety in this article and on this podcast. I also shared 25 tips to reduce test anxiety both on a blog and on a video with my friend and colleague, Ethan Sawyer, the College Essay Guy.

The new digital tests are nothing to fear. In most every way, the new assessments are better, shorter, less speedy, and more secure. As students increase their familiarity with these new assessments and practice in controlled conditions, they will be able to strengthen their testing muscles, enhance self-regulation skills, and develop the testing mindset to achieve their optimum testing outcomes.

Please let us know if your student needs any help addressing test anxiety or working to cultivate their inner resources to achieve their best outcome on test day.

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