The time between the end of a school year and the start of a new one can feel long and from a memory perspective considerable forgetting occurs. Engaging children and young people…
All in For Parents
Announcing Our New “Ace That Test” Book!! And Other Books We Enjoy (Digest #169)
We have a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT! Our newest book, Ace That Test: A Student’s Guide To Better Learning is coming out this summer—July 19 to be exact. You can preorder here. We are SUPER excited about this one! It’s a brief book written for students—young adult and adult learners—with many …
The Relationship Between Test Anxiety and Exam Performance
Does test anxiety cause poorer performance on exams? Meta-analyses show that students with higher test anxiety tend to perform worse on exams (1). We also know that anxiety can affect cognitive processes through working memory capacity (2). Therefore, the general consensus is that test anxiety interferes with our working memory, which in turn leads to poorer exam performance… However, a recent study with German medical students found that test anxiety did not predict exam performance when prior knowledge was controlled for, claiming strong evidence against the interference hypothesis (3).
Help Students Believe in Themselves: Self-efficacy Boosts Exam Scores
The six strategies for effective learning are, indeed, effective, but only to the degree that students actually use them. And in order to change behavior, we have to consider motivation. There are many different motivational theories, but today we’re going to zoom in on just one: self-efficacy.
GUEST POST: Can Digital Detox Improve your Learning Abilities?
The world will never be the same since we own digital devices. Indeed, the Internet can alter cognitive processes (1), for example, by promoting continuous division of attention - which in turn reduces our ability to maintain concentration on a particular task.
Digest #162: Teaching Water Safety
Welcome to May! In many parts of the world, the pools have been open for a while, and in New England where I live, many neighbors will start opening their pools over Memorial Day Weekend at the end of the month. Water safety is not just about summer months (lakes even when frozen over, bathtubs, …