Test stress and our children

Drawing from research by Wheelock, Bell and Haney

PAA leaders Laura Bowman (PAA-Roanoke Valley) and Julie Woestehoff (PAA interim executive director) have been collecting research and other information about test stress and our children. They presented this material for the first time during PAA Week, on July 24, 2015, and you can access the recording of the webinar here.

Laura and Julie prepared a one-page fact sheet on test stress and a background piece detailing the research we found. We included some recommendations for addressing the crisis in student test anxiety.

We found that:

• test stress in children is reaching unprecedented levels;
• anecdotal evidence about the damage to our children is overwhelming;
• overtesting may be harming our most vulnerable children the most; and
• test stress actually makes learning harder and test results unreliable.

We welcome your comments and especially suggestions for further research studies and other material.