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Test anxiety affects Ohio Graduation Test performance, professor says

Practicing in test-like setting may help students prepare.

OGT passage rates for Dayton area schools

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By Kristin McAllister and Tim Tresslar
Staff Writers Updated 8:49 AM Monday, March 15, 2010

Students preparing to take Ohio’s graduation test this month will do better if they practice in an environment that’s close to the one in which they first learned the information, a Wright State University professor said.

Jeffery Allen, a professor in the School of Professional Psychology, said the pressure of testing is not unlike the challenge of concentration that athletes face when they shift from the practice field to the competitive arena.

“Their mental resources ... are no longer available to perform for them well in this cognitive test, because it’s being used, consumed by the anxiety,” Allen said. “Their mental energy is being deflected by the task at hand.”

Area schools will administer the Ohio Graduation Test today, March 15, through March 28, said Scott Blake, a spokesman for the Ohio Dept. of Education.

The test covers five subjects: reading, writing, math, science and social studies.

To ease the anxiety and free up the mind, Allen said students should practice the test in a room identical to the anticipated testing room and with as many students as possible.

“Re-create as many of the stress variables,” he said. “Any of the sensory stimuli associated with where you learned that information, those will be cues that illicit that same response in the future.”

Nearly 70 percent of students tested last March by Ohio’s more than 600 school districts passed on the first try, according to state figures. In Montgomery County, 11 of 16 public districts met or exceeded that mark.

At Dayton City Schools, 36.6 percent of the students who took the test in March 2009 passed, while 36.2 percent of sophomores at Jefferson Twp. Local Schools passed, an improvement over the prior academic year.

Dayton’s performance last March was the fifth worst among public school districts in Ohio. Jefferson Twp. had the sixth worst results, according to a Dayton Daily News analysis of test results for the 2008-2009 school year.

Marlea Gaskins, executive director of secondary education for Dayton schools, said district high schools provide such resources as before- and after-school tutoring and Saturday ‘boot camps’ for students in advance of the test.

Having confidence in the material can help reduce anxiety in students, particularly those who have to re-take part of the test, she said.

With an 84.8 percent passing rate, or 467 of 551 students, Kettering City Schools ranked among the highest of districts in the Miami Valley for OGT testing last year.

Jim Justice, Kettering director of student services, said the district’s high passage rate stems from tracking each student’s progress since elementary school; having an advisory program that links the same teacher with a student for 15 minutes each morning through 12th grade; having teachers with a “laserlike focus” on the standards; evening tutoring; intervention classes, and a nurturing environment.

“Kids have testing data points that go back to third grade, and we’re getting better at studying that and finding where both the weaknesses and the strengths are, which allows us to work with kids who are gifted, too, to make sure they are challenged as well,” Justice said.

Failing one or more parts of the test won’t necessarily stop a student from graduating, Blake said. After the current round of testing, students have opportunities in the fall, spring and summer to re-take the sections they flunked, he said.

Additionally, students who pass four of the five subjects may still be able to graduate if they meet other criteria such as high attendance rates or certain grade-point averages, Blake said.

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