General Strategies to Reduce Stress and Anxiety

Although they should not take on the role of trained mental health professionals, instructors’ frequent contact with students renders them ‘first-line responders’ in the battle against stress and anxiety (Di Placito-De Rango, 2018). Instructors should familiarize themselves with common mental health challenges, offer support and understanding, and direct students to the appropriate resources as needed. Instructors should familiarize themselves with common mental health challenges, offer support and understanding, and direct students to the appropriate resources as needed (Di Placito-De Rango, 2018). By doing this they will have more insight about how to approach mental health conversations when they arise and they will have a list of campus contacts that can help connect students to counselors, tutors, disability services, or other resources when they need them; in severe cases where the student indicates that they may harm themselves or others, the instructor is advised to directly walk the student to someone who is better equipped to help them (e.g. counseling, health, or law enforcement services). Directing students to the appropriate resources is particularly important because students frequently do not have a good understanding of what services are available (Dobmeier et al., 2013; Zivin et al., 2009), and are often hesitant to use these services due to social stigma and other concerns (Eisenberg et al., 2009; Wu et al., 2017).

There are several steps instructors can take to decrease or eliminate student anxiety. First, instructors should explain their rationale for why they are using active learning in the classroom. Students may be less anxious and more open to active learning techniques if they have a better understanding of why they are being used. Second, instructors should promote the idea that participation is highly valued and that it is ‘okay to be wrong’ (Downing et al., 2020). When students are brave enough to contribute, you should thank them for their answers. Use positive error framing to view wrong answers as learning opportunities; instead of judging, chastising, or immediately correcting a student, the instructor can begin by saying something like ‘I used to think the same thing’ or ‘I am really glad you brought this up because it is a very common misconception’. Instead of judging, chastising, or immediately correcting a student, the instructor can begin by saying something like ‘I used to think the same thing’ or ‘I am really glad you brought this up because it is a very common misconception’. Positive-error-framing like this can reduce stress, improve metacognition, and boost learning (Downing et al., 2020; Steele-Johnson & Kalinoski, 2014). Third, instructors can reduce stress and anxiety for poor performing students by outlining appropriate coping strategies such as support seeking, problem solving, studying techniques, metacognition, and cognitive restructuring (Henry et al., 2019). These strategies can be used preemptively to prevent stress and anxiety or can be used to reduce stress and anxiety that has already occurred. Fourth, having students do a self-affirmation activity such as writing about what they value reminds them of positive aspects of themselves so that they are less threatened and less stressed by negative events (Yeager & Walton, 2011). Fifth, instructors should give students ample time to think before calling on them to present an answer (Cooper, Downing, et al., 2018). This additional time can reduce anxiety related to time-pressure. Sixth, cold calling (i.e., publicly soliciting answers from students who did not volunteer) should be avoided as it has been shown to increase anxiety (Cooper, Downing, et al., 2018) and the risk of stereotype threat (Waugh & Andrews, 2020), and even reduce learning in students with high anxiety (Cohen et al., 2019). Instead of cold calling, instructors can lower anxiety by using requests for volunteers, clicker questions, or ‘warm calling’ (Downing et al., 2020). Warm calling involves asking students to work on answers as a group and then report their group’s answer in order to take the pressure off the individual student. Lastly, because students naturally feel a lot of anxiety about answering verbal or written questions, instructors should frame social adversity as shared and short-lived as a way to increase student resilience (Walton & Cohen, 2011). This helps students to realize that everyone (including the instructor and high performing students) has challenges and makes mistakes from time to time. Instructors can also mention that a little anxiety can be beneficial as it can help students to pay attention and stay motivated (Downing et al., 2020). Reducing stress and anxiety in active learning classrooms using the above approaches can create a more comfortable classroom environment, increase trust in the instructor, and increase student performance (Hsu & Goldsmith, 2021).

Reducing Exam-Related Stress and Anxiety

Among all of the stressors that students face, high stakes examinations are certainly near the top of the list. High stakes exams have been shown to cause anxiety in diverse settings (Cizek & Burg, 2006; Kruger et al., 2007), and test anxiety contributes to student perceptions about exam difficulty and lowers their academic performance (England et al., 2019). Evidence suggests that underrepresented students and women may experience more test anxiety (Ballen et al., 2017). Furthermore, student anticipation of stereotype-laden exams may cause additional student worries (Logel et al., 2009).

Instructors can adopt a number of different strategies to help reduce or prevent test anxiety including: 1) explicitly stating that performing poorly on a single exam does not say anything about the student’s intelligence (J. Croizet & Claire, 1998; J. C. Croizet et al., 2004), 2) reducing or eliminating high stakes exams and giving more weight to smaller-stakes quizzes and other formative assessments (Bailey et al., 2017; Putwain, 2008), 3) having a policy of dropping the lowest quiz or exam score, 4) adopting a grading scheme that focuses more on mastery and rewards students for improving over time (Bailey et al., 2017), 5) using open-book exams or allowing ‘cheat sheets’ on exams (Durning et al., 2016; Erbe, 2007), 6) eliminating any triggering or stereotype-laden language from exams, 7) Have students write about their testing worries just before an exam to counter anxiety and improve exam performance. having students write about their testing worries just before an exam to counter anxiety and improve exam performance (Park et al., 2014; Ramirez & Beilock, 2011), and 8) talking about stereotype threat before an exam. Preemptively talking about stereotype threat reduces its effects, lowers anxiety, and improves exam performance (Johns et al., 2005). Replacing high stakes exams with more formative assessments lowers the impact and anxiety of each assessment, provides instructors and students with more feedback over time, and it has also been shown to reduce the achievement gap for female biology students (Ballen et al., 2017). As mentioned in the preceding section, instructors can also foster a classroom culture whereby some stress can be perceived as being beneficial in that it can help students stay motivated and focused; doing this not only decreases anxiety, but also improves exam performance (Jamieson et al., 2013). Collectively the above strategies and approaches can increase the performance of both low and high performing students (Harris et al., 2019; Hsu & Goldsmith, 2021).

Noncontent Instructor Talk and Instructor Immediacy Can Decrease Anxiety

While classroom discourse is typically dominated by course content, noncontent instructor talk also has an important role to play, especially when it comes to reducing anxiety (Creasey et al., 2009; Seidel et al., 2015) and combating stereotype threat (Seidel et al., 2015). Using noncontent instructor talk to decrease anxiety starts with increasing instructor immediacy to make the professor more relatable, more approachable, and less intimidating. Using noncontent instructor talk to decrease anxiety starts with increasing instructor immediacy to make the professor more relatable, more approachable, and less intimidating (LeFebvre & Allen, 2014; Seidel et al., 2015). As instructor immediacy increases, a corresponding decrease is seen in student anxiety (Hsu & Goldsmith, 2021; Kelly et al., 2015). One simple approach to let your students express themselves is to begin the semester with a “Getting to Know You” survey which asks them “Is there anything else you’d like the instructor to know about you?” and “Is there anything else the instructor can do to help you succeed in this course?”. Not only does this help instructors to get to know their students, but it also gives students space to reveal aspects of their identity or challenges they may be facing if they wish to share. Anxiety and stereotype threat can also be reduced when the instructor states that they recognize how some local or national news items (e.g., the murder of George Floyd) can affect the student stress, anxiety, and well-being. When these situations arise, the instructor should validate students’ feelings and let them know that they intend to be more flexible about deadlines and will hold more office hours.

Using Humor in the Classroom

Using appropriate humor in the classroom has also been shown to reduce anxiety, establish a positive classroom environment, strengthen student-instructor relationships, and increase instructor immediacy (Bekelja Wanzer et al., 2006; Cooper et al., 2020; Cooper, Hendrix, et al., 2018). Not everyone can make the students roll on the floor with laughter (which is usually not all that desirable anyways), but students will at least recognize the attempt and appreciate the effort. Humor is not something that comes naturally to everyone, and instructors should not do anything that they are uncomfortable with; that said, A little humor can help liven up the classroom and increase students’ learning, engagement, and motivation. a little humor can help liven up the classroom and increase students’ learning, engagement, and motivation (Banas et al., 2011; Neumann et al., 2009). Incorporating a little humor on exams or other assessments can decrease stress and anxiety while increasing their perceptions of exam performance (Berk, 1996, 2000). While humor can be a powerful and positive force in the classroom it should not be used at the expense of course content, and it should never marginalize or disparage anyone (Bekelja Wanzer et al., 2006; Cooper et al., 2020; Cooper, Hendrix, et al., 2018).