Just a few minutes of expressive writing before sitting an exam can boost your grade

Expressive writing boosts exam performance

Exam season has hit us all here at Warwick, and in between hunting for computers at the library and camping at the learning grid, most of us are feeling that nagging nervousness that comes with exams. Nerves can be a real problem for a lot of students, causing their performance in exams to suffer, and ultimately preventing them from getting the grades that they’re actually capable of. A study carried out by a group at the University of Chicago has revealed a very simple exercise that can help raise exam performance by around 5% for anxious students.

Expressive writing, that is, writing about one’s thoughts and feelings, has been shown in previous psychological studies to improve cases of depression and other similar disorders. However, in these cases, it is sustained writing over several months that has improved the conditions of the individuals. The researchers carried out two laboratory and two randomized field experiments to determine whether a short period of expressive writing could help ease the anxiety of students about to sit an exam.

A group of university students were given an exam under two different circumstances – the first time, they were simply told to do their best. The second time, a monetary incentive was given to simulate the pressure put on students by scholarship and bursary requirements. They were then told that the test was a team effort, and their partner had improved on their previous test score. This meant that the student was entirely responsible for winning the money for themselves and their partner. Half of the students were told to sit quietly before the exam as a control group, whilst the other half took part in ten minutes of expressive writing.

The results showed that the control group’s performance suffered as a result of the pressure – their grades dropped by 12% on average. The writing group, however, improved their grades by an average of 5%. The experiment was repeated with a different set of students, and they were split into three groups. The third group was instructed to write about an unrelated subject during the ten minutes prior to the exam. Under these conditions, there was no difference between the control and unrelated writing groups, both groups performance dropping on average by 7%. The expressive writing group again showed an improvement, of 4% this time.

The fact that such a short period of expressive writing can have such a noticeable effect on exam performance is both a breakthrough for psychologists and great news for us as students. The study shows is that although the pressure of exams can negatively affect our grades, just ten minutes of writing down our worries can not only alleviate the pressure, but it can actually improve our marks. So next time you’re in the learning grid, taking a well earned study break, spend that ten minutes writing down how you really feel about your exam. Procrastinating might just boost your grade.

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