Students Who Worry Achieve Less in GCSEs

Research in to GCSE attainment has found that students who worry about their attainment to the point where it causes them stress are likely to perform worse than their peers – by as much as a grade and a half below the in fact. The study, which is based on market research with 325 pupils in the North-West of England, focused on teenagers in the three to four months prior to their GCSE exams and asked respondents to reply to 44 statements centered around three distinct issues – worries about exams, confidence in dealing with their concerns and any strategies they used to aid themselves in dealing with these concerns.

The findings, which are today being presented to the British Education Research Association (Bera), suggested a link between stress and worry, and poor performance in examinations – this link remained even when students’ previous attainment was taken in to account. Overall, the results suggested, according to the researchers, that the difference between a student who worried and a student who did not could be the difference between an A* and a B graded exam paper – in short, students who worry achieve less in GCSEs.

On a similar topic, that of boosting exam grades and methods to assist that, a separate piece of research (which will also be presented to Bera) looked at the benefits provided by the Teach First programme. Teach First is a programme to train high-achieving graduates in the skills needed to be a successful teacher and to help them find jobs in schools in challenging areas. The research found that, among students taking eight GCSEs, those at a school in which there were Teach First teachers were likely to see a boost of a grade in one of their chosen subjects. These findings were taken from data from 168 secondary schools participating the programme in 2003-2004 and 2009-2010 and demonstrated that whilst there was no gain to the school in the first year in which Teach First teachers were involved, there were benefits in the second and third years.

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The findings will be presented to Bera today.

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Teach First was launched in 2002.

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