Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- 1 The future and its discontents
- 2 Motives as emotions
- 3 Motives as thoughts
- 4 Self-worth and the fear of failure
- 5 Achievement anxiety
- 6 The competitive learning game
- 7 Motivational equity and the will to learn
- 8 Strategic thinking and the will to learn
- 9 An immodest proposal
- 10 Obstacles to change: The myths of competition
- Appendix A Mastery learning
- Appendix B Cooperative learning
- References
- Indexes
5 - Achievement anxiety
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- 1 The future and its discontents
- 2 Motives as emotions
- 3 Motives as thoughts
- 4 Self-worth and the fear of failure
- 5 Achievement anxiety
- 6 The competitive learning game
- 7 Motivational equity and the will to learn
- 8 Strategic thinking and the will to learn
- 9 An immodest proposal
- 10 Obstacles to change: The myths of competition
- Appendix A Mastery learning
- Appendix B Cooperative learning
- References
- Indexes
Summary
I wrote my name at the top of the page. … But thereafter I could not think of anything connected with it that was either relevant or true. Incidentally there arrived from nowhere in particular a blot and several smudges. I gazed for two whole hours at this sad spectacle; and then merciful ushers collected up my piece of foolscap and carried it up to the Headmaster's table.
winston churchillThus Winston Churchill described one of the most celebrated anxiety attacks ever recorded. Churchill was not, as some have assumed, dyslexic. Nor in his youth was he as stupid as he appeared. It was simply that when confronted by the testing ritual Churchill became stricken. And so it is with millions of schoolchildren today. Kennedy Hill (1984) estimates that as many as 10 million elementary and secondary pupils in America, or roughtly one-third to one-half of all students, suffer from achievement anxiety. This means that the test scores for a near majority of children may provide an invalid estimate of what they have learned or of what they are capable of learning. Fear has misclassified these students; they likely know more than they are able to tell us through conventional testing. Nor is the problem limited only to depressed test performance. Anxiety interferes with learning as well. In fact, it detracts from everything students do, say, remember, and hope to achieve.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Making the GradeA Self-Worth Perspective on Motivation and School Reform, pp. 104 - 129Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992
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