Gelisim News

Clinical Psychologist Ünal Erdem Elli from Istanbul Gelisim University, who states that students experience anxiety in exams or related issues, said: “This disturbing feeling is often accompanied by some physical symptoms such as acceleration in heart rate, rapid breathing and sweating. The individual is so mentally engaged with the perception of threat that he has difficulty focusing on anything other than his own anxiety. The result is a loss of concentration, which usually leads to less success than usual. Some students are so uncomfortable with this feeling of anxiety that they start to avoid the exam and even the activities that remind the exam, such as trial exams or test-solving and related activities in general. This of course increases the risk of failure and creates a negative vicious circle for the individual. The student does not prepare for the exam because he / she is anxious, the level of anxiety increases because he / she is not prepared and this is perceived by the student as an inevitable vicious circle.”

“IT’S NEEDED TO RECOGNIZE THE TIPS OF ANXIETY”

Expert Clinical Psychologist Elli stated that what is expected from the exam and the future is one of the reasons for exam anxiety, and added: “We see that a significant number of students who have exam anxiety have negative expectations about the exam result. In other words, students often start to feel anxious due to the idea that they will fail the exam. Although this thought is not always very clearly in the consciousness of the student, when we examine the elements of anxiety during the therapy process, we see that the underlying thought is mostly related to this.”

Expert Clinical Psychologist Elli emphasized that generally, we see test anxiety more than the average in successful students in their education life, and continued: “This shows that the anxiety these students feel is ‘not accurate‘. Because, in fact, these students are not generally unsuccessful, but still have unrealistic anxiety about failing. The basis of the psychological help process with the students who get help to cope with the test anxiety is mostly to examine this perception of unreal failure and instead to give a more realistic perspective. It is also important for students to recognize the clues of anxiety and to help them use methods such as breathing and relaxation exercises to control their anxiety-triggered physical symptoms.”

“THE FAMILY AND THE ENVIRONMENT HAVE IMPORTANT EFFECTS ON ANXIETY”

Elli argueing that the family and the environment in general have an important role in exam anxiety, said: “Some of the students' concerns about the exam are ‘expectation of failure’ and the other part is expectations about what they will experience in case of failure. As students see the failure of the exam as synonymous with life-long failure, it is understandable that their expectations about the exam result create anxiety in them. Parents or teachers are often the ones who see the failure of the exam as a disaster. Therefore, we can say that the environment and the family have important effects on exam anxiety formation.”