Lowering Test Anxiety Through Aerobic Exercise

Ronald Lee

The purpose of this study is to look at methods to lower test anxiety. The method chosen for lowering test anxiety was to have students exercise vigorously before testing. So far, studies have shown that overall personal appearance is higher for individuals who exercise daily. Knowing the test subjects through a period of six months and learning their habits, the study found a great number of the test subjects to have a sedentary lifestyle when at home. The test subjects were thirty elementary school students in the second grade. For a medium of evaluating test anxiety, several different interview questions were asked in contrary to what the students feel during tests. During these interviews, the students took a weekly spelling test for ten weeks. Before each spelling test, the students were given encouragement to study the spelling words during the weekend before the test. The second phase of the study, the students were led through a series of exercises before each week's spelling test. The research findings confirmed in a group of individuals that the exercise did in fact lower raise the test scores which in turn helped decrease anxiety levels for testing. However, for the entire population, the achievement levels did not rise. This is due in part to the limitations had with the amount of time to give students aerobic exercise before tests was being administered.