ArticleCBE life sciences education2019
Can Test Anxiety Interventions Alleviate a Gender Gap in an Undergraduate STEM Course?
Article in CBE life sciences education, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 67 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effectiveness of stress arousal reappraisal and stress-is-enhancing mindset interventions on task performance outcomes: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.Scientific reports · 2024Pooled it
- Meta-analysis of Gender Performance Gaps in Undergraduate Natural Science Courses.CBE life sciences education · 2021Pooled it
- Can we Mitigate the Impacts of Test Anxiety Through Reappraisal Interventions? A Replication Study in Science Courses Across Multiple Institution Types in the United States.CBE life sciences education · 2026Article
- Cisnormative Language and Erasure of Trans* and Genderqueer Student Representation in Biology Education Research.CBE life sciences education · 2025Article
- STEM, gender, and mental health: Understanding depression and anxiety in a national undergraduate sample.PLOS mental health · 2025Article
- Is Support in the Anxiety of the Beholder? How Anxiety Interacts with Perceptions of Instructor Support in Introductory Biology Classes.CBE life sciences education · 2024Article
- Optional Exam Retakes Reduce Anxiety but may Exacerbate Score Disparities Between Students with Different Social Identities.CBE life sciences education · 2024Article
- Anxiety and heart rate in a real-life class test in undergraduates choosing real-time or prerecorded oral presentations.Biologia futura · 2024Article
- Gendered Performance Gaps in an Upper-Division Biology Course: Academic, Demographic, Environmental, and Affective Factors.CBE life sciences education · 2023Article
- Investigating the Influence of Assessment Question Framing on Undergraduate Biology Student Preference and Affect.CBE life sciences education · 2023Article
- A Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) in Biology: Developing Systems Thinking through Field Experiences in Restoration Ecology.CBE life sciences education · 2022Article
- Why Did Students Report Lower Test Anxiety during the COVID-19 Pandemic?Journal of microbiology & biology education · 2022Article
- Aspects of online college science courses that alleviate and exacerbate undergraduate depression.PloS one · 2022Article
- Context Matters: Social Psychological Factors That Underlie Academic Performance across Seven Institutions.CBE life sciences education · 2021Article
- COVID-19 and Undergraduates with Disabilities: Challenges Resulting from the Rapid Transition to Online Course Delivery for Students with Disabilities in Undergraduate STEM at Large-Enrollment Institutions.CBE life sciences education · 2021Article
- Recreational Screen Time and Anxiety among College Athletes: Findings from Shanghai.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Does expressive writing or an instructional intervention reduce the impacts of test anxiety in a college classroom?Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2021Article
- Christianity as a Concealable Stigmatized Identity (CSI) among Biology Graduate Students.CBE life sciences education · 2021Article
- Instructor Strategies to Alleviate Stress and Anxiety among College and University STEM Students.CBE life sciences education · 2021Article
- An exploratory analysis of factors contributing to resident pass rates on a national licensure OSCE in the United Arab Emirates.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Gender gaps in exam scores or final grades are common in introductory college science and engineering classrooms, with women underperforming relative to men with the same admission test scores or college grade point averages. After failing to close a historically documented gender gap in a large introductory biology course using interventions targeted at training a growth mindset, we implemented interventions designed to reduce student test anxiety. We combined evidence-based exercises based on expressive writing and on reappraising physiological arousal. We also used a valid measure to quantify test anxiety at the start and end of the course. This instrument measures an individual's self-declared or perceived test anxiety-also called trait anxiety-but not the immediate or "state" anxiety experienced during an actual exam. Consistent with previous reports in the literature, we found that women in this population declared much higher test anxiety than men and that students who declared higher test anxiety had lower exam scores than students who declared lower test anxiety. Although the test anxiety interventions had no impact on the level of self-declared trait anxiety, they did significantly increase student exam performance. The treatment benefits occurred in both men and women. These data suggest that 1) a combination of interventions based on expressive writing and reappraising physiological arousal can be a relatively easy manner to boost exam performance in a large-enrollment science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) course and encourage emotion regulation; 2) women are more willing than men to declare that they are anxious about exams, but men and women may actually experience the same level of anxiety during the exam itself; and 3) women are underperforming in STEM courses for reasons other than gender-based differences in mindset or test anxiety.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.