The issue of assessment and its relation to stress in the transistion from Year 6 to High school.

Mental Health.

Social Class and expectations.

Gender.

"Understanding how fear works, and how we can better relate to it could make an enormous difference to health and wellbeing in our society, not to mention enlarging individuals potential for living, learning and growing." (Mental Health Foundation, 2009:13)

Fear of failure

Image of self.

Academic self-concept

image

Shalveston, Hubner and Stanton (1976)

Reay and William, Big Fish, Little Pond effect.

Definition of Fear, Jackson (2010:40) WEEK 5 Powerpoint.

Difference between fear and anxiety

Anxiety/Fear.

Does assessment lead to mental health issues such as anxiety?

Week 5 powerpoint definitions.

"Fear socially constructed" Altheide (2004)

Stakes are higher for Neo-liberal society.

Different form of fear.

Imagine how we would go about designing an educational program if our purpose were to make students hate to learn. We would not involve them [students] in establishing the purpose of their class. We would not require them to perform some impossible tasks – for example, to be perfect in everything they do. Further, when we discovered that the students were failing to master the impossible tasks, we would ridicule them and report their mistakes, failures and shortcomings to their friends and relatives.

(Krumboltz cited in Covington, 1998: 104 in Jackson, 2013: 190)

• Fears of academic failure are commonplace in schools (Denscombe, 2000)

• Jackson (2000; 2007; 2013: 193) ‘There’s never a break; it’s continuous testing’

neoliberal ethos of individualisation, competition and marketization’.
(Ringrose, 2007: 484)

Zeidner (2007 cited in Jackson, 2013) – high levels of stress and anxiety can have a debilitating effect on attainment and can lead to disengagement

Solutions

Growth Mindset, Dweck (2000)

Cooperative Learning Environment

• ‘it’s important to reduce students’ fear of failure by developing a class and school climate of cooperation, allowing students to make and learn from mistakes, showing students that their worth as a person is independent of their academic achievement’ (Martin, 2003: 28)