EXAMINATION PHOBIA AND ITS MEASURES

Abstract

The examination fever descends on the scholars time and again. They could have studied diligently the whole year and revised the syllabus an honest number of times. But within the exam hall, when the question paper is handed out, they become anxious and nervous. The mind goes numb, and therefore the students struggle to recall the answers. Their hands and feet get cold, and their heart starts pounding. Fear of exams or phobia of exams is real. Scientifically, the fear of exams is named as 'Examinophobia'. It's a mental disturbance found in most of the scholars but often ignored by parents and teachers. The oldsters and teachers, more often than not, assume exam fear because the incapability of the scholar and discard its existence. Examinations are the integral a part of any education system. Education systems of today become highly competitive due to grate emphasize on quality. In this achievement-oriented scenario students make tremendous effort to put out their maximum because exams and tests are gateway to hunt admission in higher education and ensure better jobs in labor market. So, the researchers and educationists are continuously struggling for finding the ways to maximize the performance of students by promoting better metal health and self-image. One step in this regard is to improve student's self-concept and reduced exams related anxieties. Students during their whole academic year naturally remain in constant worry and pressure of exams whether they are highly prepared or not. Though a little bit fear or anxiety due to examination is common, but when it get excessive and severe it is called examination phobia. It is the excessive worry or fear and anxiety regarding upcoming exams.

Full text

EXAMINATION PHOBIA AND ITS MEASURES
*Dr. Sanjukta Padhi
Abstract: - The examination fever descends on the scholars time and again. They could have
studied diligently the whole year and revised the syllabus an honest number of times. But within
the exam hall, when the question paper is handed out, they become anxious and nervous. The
mind goes numb, and therefore the students struggle to recall the answers. Their hands and feet
get cold, and their heart starts pounding. Fear of exams or phobia of exams is real.
Scientifically, the fear of exams is named as ‘Examinophobia’. It’s a mental disturbance found in
most of the scholars but often ignored by parents and teachers. The oldsters and teachers, more
often than not, assume exam fear because the incapability of the scholar and discard its
existence. Examinations are the integral a part of any education system. Education systems of
today become highly competitive due to grate emphasize on quality. In this achievement-oriented
scenario students make tremendous effort to put out their maximum because exams and tests are
gateway to hunt admission in higher education and ensure better jobs in labor market. So, the
researchers and educationists are continuously struggling for finding the ways to maximize the
performance of students by promoting better metal health and self-image. One step in this regard
is to improve student‘s self-concept and reduced exams related anxieties. Students during their
whole academic year naturally remain in constant worry and pressure of exams whether they are
highly prepared or not. Though a little bit fear or anxiety due to examination is common, but
when it get excessive and severe it is called examination phobia. It is the excessive worry or fear
and anxiety regarding upcoming exams.
Keywords- Diligently, Examinophobia, oldsters, pounding, self-image, competitive.
*Assistant Professor, School of Psychology, Gangadhar Meher University, Amruta Vihar,
Sambalpur, Pin- 768004
Email ID- spsanjuktapadhi@gmail.com

INTRODUCTION
Moreover, it's considered that anxiety always comes from unidentified danger, while phobia is
excessive fear of particular object, thing or situation that exceeds from the normal limits of fear.
Students before and during examination experience large amount of fear and worry from
upcoming exams due to the feeling of incompetence or poor preparation and also shows the
symptoms of excessive anxiety and uneasiness due to unknown outcomes of the exams. So, we
can say that extreme fear of examination is both an anxiety and phobia because literature shows
both terms to precise students‘extreme fear of examination. Basically test anxiety is the
personality disposition that comes from cognitive and personality characteristics of the students.
The cognitive element of test anxiety is related to mental and thinking process of students (i.e.
consequences of anxiety like, irrational and intrusive thought before and during examination).
While different variables related to personality traits also predict test anxiety among students.
Furthermore, it is admitted fact that environment and situational variables also influence human
feelings and thinking. It also plays a vital role in shaping person‘s attitude towards other and also
about him/herself. Moreover, a person develops the complex feelings of inner self by interacting
with others (i.e. parents, siblings, teachers, and with peer group). From the above perspective of
the event of self, person‘s self-concept refers to one‘s perception about him/herself. In other
words it can be defined as; it is the mental representation of a person, by interpreting their
experiences in relation to environment. It includes the feeling of self-confidence, self-worth, self-
acceptance, competence and ability. However, these terms are overlapping to each other and
often use interchangeably.
As discussed earlier, people in one‘s life play significant role in shaping self-concept so, the
students‘self-concept is the result of the behavior of others towards them in academic matters.
Furthermore, it is also considered that other‘s behavior, expectations and student‘s personal
variables heighten the examination related anxieties and phobia. Among the different factors,
parent and teacher‘s attitude such as unrealistic expectations and harsh criticism play significant
role in predicting examination phobia. Meanwhile, the students whose parents play supporting
and encouraging role to accomplish the challenging tasks have more positive self-concept; have
confidence in their academic capabilities and have less academic and exams anxieties. In
contrast, parents who scold and punish their children for those tasks that they need not ability to
try to instead of praising them for things that they can do mostly have low global self-concept.
Furthermore, global self-concept that commonly known as self-esteem is the characteristic of
self-confidence and self–assertiveness. Likewise, teacher‘s behavior has similar effect on
students. Those teachers who provide positive reinforcement to their students accomplished
school related task with more confidence and their ultimate success reinforce their self-

confidence. Contrary teacher‘s negative behavior develops the sense of inferiority among
students. Such sense of inferiority and lack of worthiness decreases the self-concept.
Furthermore, self-concept and self-esteem also depend on the tendency of how much the students
successfully achieve their academic tasks. Students likely believe that they can easily accomplish
their tasks when they have been successful in their previous tasks. While poor performs in
previous tasks leads towards poor competence believe that is also a cause of examination phobia.
Though, poor competence belief is linked with anticipated failure in exams but also with
assuming examination as threatening. When the test anxious students come across evaluative
threat, they exhibit pessimist and more negative thinking. Their negative self-perception about
the results of exams interferes with their task accomplishment. Moreover, highly test anxious
subjects reflect self-doubts in evaluative situation that leads to poor performance. In addition,
debilitating test anxiety is positively correlated with students‘self-doubts on their abilities and
avoidance orientation to any evaluative tasks, while negatively correlated with the importance of
ability. In this regard, one’s self-concept plays an important role in predicting his/her academic
performance. Students’ academic self-concept is the evaluation of their abilities in specific
academic domains. In addition, it is assumed that self-efficacy and self-concept cover many
domains of self-perception and functioning because both measure one‘s perception about his/her
abilities.
Moreover, it is also denoted that general perceived self efficacy and students’ academic
performance are positively correlated to each other. Research studies revealed that highly test
anxious students score low at self-efficacy and the relationship between them is negative. In
addition, As compared to non-test anxious students, test anxious students generally have low
self-concept and self-assurance. Moreover, the correlation between self-concept and test anxiety
is negative among the students of all age groups. It is also stated that their negative self-image is
often develops due to failure in exams. However, among all the aspects of the self-concept
educational and psychological researchers have widest interest in global self-concept that is self-
esteem because positive self-concept mostly associated with better performance. Though,
researchers sometime use this term interchangeably with self-concept but it is assumed that self-
esteem is only a part and evaluative dimension of the self-concept. Moreover, students’ self-
concept is considered to be related to their esteem and self-worth judgment, and both concepts
are supported past judgments and consider examination as threat to them. It is well documented
that high self-esteem increases academic performance and the relationship is negative between
test anxiety and self-esteem.
Though self-esteem provides a dimension to measure self worth that is a part of global self-
concept but to measure the multi-dimensional facets of self-concept for present study three
dimensions (self-confidence, self-worth and competence/ ability believe) were taken to measure
student‘s self-concepts in academic setting. Therefore, the primary purpose of this research is to
test the hypothesis, examination phobia has a significant relationship with self-concept. Where
student‘s self-concept is measured by the appraisal threat of exams to their self-confidence, self-

worth and competence /ability believe. In addition, to test the relationship between different
factors of student‘s examination phobia (that are lack of concentration, fear of teachers, previous
class result, poor preparation and fear of losing affection of parents) with the overall self-concept
and individually with self-confidence, self-worth and ability believe.
Although the fear of exams can occur at any age, it often starts during the first childhood and
adolescence stage – the stages where the students’ potential is tested through tests, examinations,
and interviews. Though there might be numerous reasons for exam phobia, the causes of exam
stress might be mainly thanks to the fear of failing an exam.
Other causes could be:
Excessive worry about exams
Feeling doubtful about the evaluation process
Worried about the results after the results. Especially, in households where parents aren't
supportive if the scholar scores less
High expectations from parents, relatives, and society
Lack of confidence could lead on to a phobia of exams when exposed to a stressful
situation
Poor parenting might be one among the main reasons. The environment where the scholar
grows affects the personality of the scholar. Within the house where parents always
quarrel, the kid grows up as an insecure individual or an individual with low-esteem.
During exams, this insecurity could create more stress and cause examinophobia.
Examinophobics suffer from hyper anxiety, severe examination stress, inability to concentrate,
and sudden amnesia. These sorts of symptoms might cause negative consequences mentally also
as physically. The scholar might suffer from vomiting and diarrhea. If the scholar is exposed to
worry for an extended period of your time, it could lead on to depression also.
Exam fear or phobia of exams is prevalent but it's one among the smallest amount recognized
disorders. The maximum amount because it is vital to know the fragile nature of this order, it's
even more important to eliminate it, to take care of the great psychological state of youngsters.
Before the exam:
Regular study/routine study: rather than preparing for the exams at the last moment,
having a schedule for studies and preparing regularly could help the kid to kick away the
examination fear.

Choose the proper time to study: nighthawk or a morning person? If your child may be a
morning person, let him/her do most of the study before lunch, on time in the dark . If
s/he may be a nighthawk, allow them to relax during the daytime and study in the dark .
Ensure your child gets enough sleep: regardless of what proportion your child has
studied, if s/he has not slept well, there are high chances that their mind might go numb
during exams.
Solve previous years’ question papers: Most of the time, questions are repeated from past
exam papers. Even otherwise, the previous years’ question papers can offer you a thought
about question paper pattern. This keeps the examination fear cornered because the child
is mentally prepared for what to expect within the exam.
Talk it out: Encourage the scholars to speak out if they don’t understand certain things or
feel stressed. Discussing the exam stress can provide a touch of relief to the scholars .
Relax your mind: Yes, exams are a stressful phase. But if the kid would really like to
observe a movie, or hear music each day before the exam, let him/her. This relaxes their
minds.
During the exam:
Deep breathing: The exam stress or phobia of exams can constrict the oxygen flow to the brain.
Deep breathes can reverse this process and increase the oxygen flow to the brain. This causes the
mind and body to relax.
Skip the difficult questions: If an issue within the test paper is difficult to answer, advise the kid
to skip those questions, answer the better ones and are available back to the difficult questions
later.
After an exam:
Don’t discuss: the buddies of your child may need done better or worse within the exam.
It’s best to not discuss this.
Nothing is often changed: regardless of how your child has performed within the
examination, it can’t be changed. So, its best to forget the past exam and steel oneself
against the upcoming exams.
There is no secret mantra to eliminate examination phobia. But with proper measures, it
might be avoided. After all, time management, hard work, and learning from previous
mistakes are the key factors for fulfillment

Many students suffer exam phobia. As the examination keeps approaching they begin showing
some unusual behavior. They feel uneasy. They wish that the day would never come. When the
day arrives, they feel distressed. This feeling of fear, distress, uneasiness and discomfort makes
outburst within the sort of vomiting tendency, headache, feverish sensation, refusal of exam,
fainting, excessive thirst, etc. What medical remedy can there be for such examination phobia? I
do not think there is any.
The examinee himself is the physician for his own phobia. There are certain non-medical
treatment measures for examination phobia. First, the examinee must know the usual causes of
examination phobia. Lack of confidence can be the biggest cause of examination phobia. One
must have adequate confidence in one’s capacity. Lack of confidence lends feeling of
nervousness to a person. When an examinee has less confidence in his ability, he feels that he
cannot face the examination challenge. So he loses his morale. When he loses his morale he feels
abnormally scared of the exam he's writing or is going to write down.
Lack of adequate preparation fairly often leads an examinee to exam phobia. If an examinee isn't
clearly conversant in the syllabus, thorough with the chapters and lacks even general concepts of
the chapters, he's very likely to develop a fear for the examination.
The tendency to escape any hardship of life also develops examination phobia in the students.
Excessive love of ease and comfort may develop in a individual the tendency to fight shy of the
difficulties of life. Family background may be the cause of the growth of such tendency in the
children. Children should be given the opportunity to feel that life is not an easy sail. It is full of
hardships.
Lack of positive aim and mission in life also sometimes develops examination phobia in the
students. Children with positive aims and missions will never fear any challenge in life. They
feel interested in facing competitions. Examinations may work as the measuring scale to assess
how much fit they are for certain challenging work. Such students can never develop
examination phobia. On the contrary the youngsters having the other mental set-up are bound to
fear examination or any test in life.
Anxiety, depression, neuro-psychotic disorders, mal-adjustment with learning situations and
environment can also be the causes for examination phobia.
To fight examination phobia students must inculcate abundant confidence in them. They must
never feel that they are in any way inferior to others in capacity. They must neither be under-
confident nor overconfident. They must have an optimistic vision that they will fare well in the
examination
Like many psychological constructs, the more closely they're analyzed, the more problematic
they become. For instance, research shows that a lot of highly test-anxious students make more
effort than low test-anxious students as a compensatory mechanism; and a few test-anxious

students have good study skills, some don’t. Some of these components define test in terms of
features, some in terms of effects and a few in terms of outcome. Writing about dyslexia,
Tonnesson (1997) argues that only the feature principle should be used, which if applied to check
anxiety, would rule out a number of the cognitive and behavioral aspects. This would leave only
the affective component, which some have claimed is that the least important and will be
dumped from the construct altogether (Wine, 1982; see Putwain, 2008a).
Recent models of test anxiety are process-orientated and emphasize how an excellent many
variables interact within the appraisal of an examination. In Zeidner and Mathews’ (2005) self-
regulative model short-term distress is seen primarily because the results of negative self-beliefs,
maintained by metacognitive strategies (such as heightened attention). Long-term distress is seen
because the results of maladaptive person–situation interaction (e.g. negative feedback from
others, and avoidance which successively results in a degradation in skills). The biopsychosocial
model (Lowe et al., 2008) proposes that distal (within child/adolescent variables like
intelligence, study skills and academic self-efficacy) combine with proximal (situational or
interpersonal) variables to determine the degree of hysteria that's facilitating at low levels,
becoming debilitating at higher levels. This estimation is predicated on a curvilinear relationship
between test anxiety and performance, but this relationship isn't universally accepted. Some
propose that facilitative and debilitating test anxieties are independent, in order that a student
could also be high in one form and low in another (e.g. Putwain, in press).
CONCLUSION
Hence it's vital for each student to manage & prioritize his time. To do so he/ she should follow a
schedule. That time table should lay special emphasis over difficult subjects like Sanskrit,
Math’s, and Science etc. There should be a special provision for revision during the examination
months. To overcome stress a student should also maintain separate time slots to urge sufficient
breaks in between. Eating healthy food, taking proper sleep, regular exercise or following some
sport activities to keep them happy is also important for students to overcome exam phobia.
Sincerity, regularity, concentration and time management will help overcoming Examination
phobia.
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