Students, stress and anxiety

[Jourdain11]

I work in a university and it's the middle of exam season. For most universities this is the first year returning to in-person exams, but actually not for the one I work in.

These last few weeks have been a constant flood of deferrals, issues in exams, requests to cancel their attempt and retake in August. Some are very well justified, others not so much. Unless there has genuinely been a breakout of gastroenteritis in student halls which has incapacitated every student for a full two weeks.

Since Covid, there seems to be an accepted get-out clause on everything. If you don't want to do it, you just don't! Yet I worry that it is not helping students in the long- or even short-term. They are backing up assessments and at some point they run out of road and it's even more stressful. And meanwhile, workloads are unmanageable.

What can be done about it? Do universities just need to be tougher? Everyone is worried about possible harm being caused, but I do worry that by trying to alleviate stress for the few, we're creating a ridiculously permissive situation for the many, which is not to their advantage.

Or, if so many students are genuinely so stressed and anxious that they cannot do a single exam - what needs to change?

I think we do need to bear in mind that the kids now at uni missed out on a whole load of normal growing up because of COVID.

COVID had an impact on lots of people but I always felt more sorry for the teenagers and young adults. 2 years is a really long time at that age when you are transitioning from child to adult. It's not really surprising that more of them are struggling than usual?

The trend pre-dates Covid based on my own experience

IME it predates covid but massively accelerated over covid.

@VeggieSalsa please tell me you responded "that's because it is an order"?!

Interesting that some courses have ditched exams and moved to assessments.

One DC I know has graduated without taking an exam since GCSE.

Another is Yr2 at high ranking RG - no in person exams so far. Did sit GCSE and teacher-assessed A level exams.

Yr1 student, ditto RG, has never sat a public exam (Covid cohort GCSE and A level) and no first year exams. Apparently lecturers feel assessments are fairly pointless due to subject matter and AI. Fortunately they are a resilient and hardworking young person and achieving 2.1/borderline First so far.

Sadly it was an anonymous feedback form so I didn’t have the opportunity!

A Year 1 student will have sat A Levels last year. Or GCSEs in 2019. Exams were only cancelled in 2020 and 2021. Unless they did a L3 BTEC, but even that would have had some exam component.

Sorry but that's untrue. Current First years were the most affected cohort. It's my DC.

Apologies, didn't do GCSE. A levels were only exam.

Children have to be in school for so long now and it's all geared to going to Uni or apprenticeships for those who have practical skills. The children who aren't really skilled in either area still get driven towards Uni and then can't cope, and a failed or poor degree looks worse on their CV then no degree at all. No wonder they're stressed and desperate to put everything off til later.

It is not just about that, though. At the uni I work in, students don't get in unless they have extremely good A Levels and a very strong PS. They certainly are, at least on paper, academic and highly motivated. We also have a very high proportion of international students, so this isn't something we can just pin on UK schooling and the impact of Covid on UK schools' exams. The British students aren't worse than the international ones in terms of seeking extensions and so on.

I wish uni SM would toughen up their stance on this and send a clear message that you do your exams in all but the most exceptional circumstances. On a personal level, I hate that I am not doing my job well because of the volume of work. I probably put in 2-3 hours overtime each day this week and I'm still horrendously behind.

I’ve name changed but I’m about to sit finals for veterinary. I’ve been at uni 6 years and obviously did A levels and GCSEs before this. The last couple of years our exams were in person but open book. They’re now closed book…
If I don’t pass these exams I lose the job I have lined up. The revision period has resulted in:

• me gaining almost 2 stone
• losing some of my hair
• vomiting at least 4 times a day
• booking an emergency dentist appointment due to extreme pain and being unable to eat and being diagnosed with micro fractures in my teeth and jaw due to stress grinding/clenching.
• High blood pressure
• Resting heart rate increased by around 30bpm

and other things I’ve probably forgotten. I have NEVER felt stress like this, ever.

They start on Monday and will be finished by the end of Thursday but I honestly don’t think I’ll do well as I’m so stressed. I feel like these type of exams are so old fashioned.

I’ve proven i can ‘be a vet’, I’ve spayed cats, I’ve spayed rabbits, I’ve castrated dogs, placed IVs, done days of consulting with owners and this is what decides whether I’m good enough or not

I will add that none of this means I won’t sit the exams. I absolutely will but I’m shitting it! And I’m also now on beta blockers 😅

That hasn't been our experience at all. Things have started to turn around ever so slightly with our current first years, they had real exams for A Levels and came in with real grades. Only in person uni, last year of school in person. They're more or less where we expect, although attendance is down.

Current second years have only had in person uni which helps, but they came in on predicted grades so there's a heavy left tail that frankly shouldn't be on the course. They're doing ok, but definitely a covid cohort.

Current third years have been most affected in our experience. No exams from GCSEs to second year uni, first year uni online so when they turned up in second year they were nowhere near the norm, either socially or academically, and level two just doesn't have space for them not to be on it. Plus they also came in on predicted grades, so again they aren't all up to scratch. Some of them missed key topics in their final months of school - I teach a mathematical subject and have come across students who didn't cover integration at school. I really do feel for this group of students, even though it's frustrating to explain things like "you need to bring pen and paper so that when I write things on the board you can copy it down".

Exercising legal rights to industrial action to, in part, protect educational standards, is not being lazy.

Plus there's every chance OP isn't taking part in the boycott. I haven't heard of a single person in our large school who is.

Exams are very artificial and don't measure the appropriate skills. There is no need for people to mug up information that they will forget a week later. It would be better to assess people in more realistic settings than have it all be about performance in written tests over a short period of time. Increasingly, the best at that sort of activity is AI. And AI has zero understanding. That tells you all you need to know about the significance of exams.

That is not to say that a modest degree of stress can't be motivating. Some stress is a fact of life and would inevitably be part of any alternative form of assessment but undergoing a more natural form of assessment would be a better training experience than exams.

I'm very old fashioned, but I'm increasingly suspicious of any assessment that doesn't take place on pen and paper in an invigilated exam hall. Luckily that works ok for my subject.

Good exams ask open ended questions that require students to write something creative rather than just regurgitate facts, but it's easier in some subjects than others.

I think we also need to appreciate the level of anxiety generated by Whatsapp. Only last week I had an argument with a student who was challenging my explanation of what was required in order to pass their assignment. Apparently another student in the group was encouraging them to approach the assignment in a certain way which would, in my humble opinion, result in a fail. The student insisted that I was wrong and that the WhatsApp interpretation was the correct way to go.
Who am I to question the veracity of WhatsApp? I'm only the person who wrote the course, created the assignment, compiled the reading list, will be marking the assignment, and have two chapters in the key textbook on the subject! Since I put out an announcement challenging WhatsApps version of the truth I have received a flurry of extensions (granted by the centralised university system that doesn't know the students and is unable to differentiate between those in genuine need and those who are taking the piss) on the grounds that I had not explained the assignment to them. Why didn't any of these people book a tutorial ?😡😡

The problem is that universities are not going to do this as they are paid by number of students. This system also means that they have to pay a lot of attention to student course assessments as they don't want to put students off so they give high grades for shoddy work and or dumb down courses. The conservatives user pays system has abjectly failed once again.

I'm anxious about an essay due Monday and have procrastinated because of it. Now both kids have chicken pox and my essay is still due. Could I defer? Probably. Will I? No.
But I'm older and slightly wiser than your average fresher.

I really feel for the students, and I don’t think they’re making it up or mistaking normal anxiousness for anxiety disorders. They’ve missed out on so much during covid, at a critical time of development. I don’t think resilience is something people usually develop during catastrophic circumstances. Our young adults have been through something most of us can’t imagine.

I have two DC at university at the moment. One started before covid and is managing ok. The other started during covid and is really not managing and is one of the students who has asked for multiple extensions. She was always quite resilient as a child, but covid pretty much broke her. She has no confidence about anything. It’s incredibly sad.

I really feel for the students, and I don’t think they’re making it up or mistaking normal anxiousness for anxiety disorders.

Sorry, but in some cases they really are!

@andifeelfine
I wouldn't assume all students are taking the piss. Just because you haven't been badly scarred from lockdown doesn't mean others haven't been. Don't underestimate how long it's going to take for everyone to really heal.

Firstly, I don't assume that all students are taking the piss. Secondly, who's to say I'm not scarred from lockdown? However, we've been out of restrictions for a year at this point.

I can't even fathom that all of these students are getting exam dates moved, extensions etc due to minor issues. It's alot more strict in my university! I'm a young mom and my baby had to have his leg amputated and the amount of evidence and justification I had to go through in the middle of his recovery just to get my assignment due dates moved to the summer period was insane.

@JenniferBarkley That's really interesting to see how the various year groups at uni are coping. My DD is year 2.