Using practice tests as a vaccine to desensitize test anxiety in vulnerable students during pandemic induced lock-down.

Abstract

Abstract Field of education psychology seeks bridging gap between research and theory on teaching and classroom practice. Students’ struggle when content matter gets increasingly intense especially when subjects need plenty of rote memory. Covid-19 took a heavy toll on students who were already prone to test anxiety. The current research hypothesized that utilization of practice tests for first-year pharmacy microbiology and immunology course will enhance students learning, understanding and comprehension of complicated material. Since pandemic anxiety added to pre-existing anxiety among pharamacy students we used this measure to mitigate. A cohort of sixty students taking a 4-credit course of Microbiology/Immunology were recruited in this study. Students’ voluntarily declared their fears of superadded anxiety levels because of pandemic. A pool of exam ‘questions collected over the last five years were accurately screened and 300 questions were selected based on the criteria of lectures topics, difficulty level and meeting the specific objectives for every lecture that was presented to students and covered in the exams. Two groups were analyzed based upon their use of practice exams offered and their willingness to utilize them. The data based upon their performance was collected at the end of final examination to assess the benefit of study guide to students. Likert-type Ordinary Scale data analysis was used to determine if hypothesis was supported. The analysis of primary endpoint indicated that majority of students (69.87%) who used the practice exams performed better. In the feedback they reportedly strongly agreed that it helped them to make their study more focused and improved their pre-existing anxiety levels during pandemic.