CORRELATES OF EXAMINATION STRESS

Stress and anxiety are universal human experiences that are intrinsic to human conditions. One learns and acquires knowledge by constantly interacting with the environment.  In our modern technological and achievement oriented society stress and anxiety is evoked by social-evaluative situations. Today, test, examinations and evaluative situations have emerged as potent anxiety evoking stimuli in our society that demand our attention for its alleviation. The reason being that its debilitating effects have overpowered its facilitating effects. Stress involves not only the potential stressful events themselves, but also interpretations of them and the individual’s response- which may be physiological, cognitive, affective or behavioural. It adversely affects the social, cognitive and academic performance, as well as mental health of a person. Academic stress more among students occurs due to their exposure to huge amounts of information, technological advancement and diversification of modes of learning. They are unable to handle the loads of information and cope with demands and pressures from the environment. Eventually, their performance in academics begins to decrease. Feelings of worry, apprehension, self-preoccupation and bodily tensions begin to surface due to distal and proximal factors. Distal factors may be- the biological makeup, parental expectations and child-rearing practices, observation and modelling of test-anxious behaviour of parents, teachers, siblings and peers and the school and class environment. The proximal factors pertain to the test and task related variables. Stress related to examination is determined by an interplay of both the situational and subjective determinants. It may be expressed through cognitive, affective and behavioural responses of individuals in evaluative situations. Examination stress may have an adverse effect on the physiological and mental well-being of the students. Under highly stressful situations, in an effort to cope with the situation they may experience loss of sleep and appetite, sweating, problems in information processing and memory failure. This may inhibit realization of their true potential.