This is why these studies ask students to “let yourself go and explore your emotions and thoughts…” and to “be as open as possible….” In turn, those expressions free up working memory, the cognitive resources necessary for sustained attention and controlled thought, both of which are key to acing those math exams. In fact, this intervention is most effective when students use more anxiety-related words in their expressive writing. By acknowledging those anxious thoughts-even without disclosing them to anyone else-students are able to set them aside. Such intrusive thoughts may be more likely among students who shoulder the burden of negative stereotypes about their social groups’ performance in STEM, such as women and racial minorities. In other words, when a student should be thinking about how to define a parabola, they’re instead thinking about how worried they are that they might fail. How exactly does this brief intervention work? It is believed that math anxiety elicits intrusive thoughts during an exam that impair performance. In another study, college students who journaled for 15 to 20 minutes per day for four days, compared to students who wrote about time management, had higher GPAs at the end of the year by 0.4 points. Pennebaker, John Evans 3.86 249 ratings24 reviews Want to read Kindle 9.99 Rate this book Expressive Writing: Words that Heal provides research results, in laymans terms, which demonstrate how and when expressive writing can improve health. And it may come as no surprise that students who experience lower levels of depression would do better in the classroom. Expressive Writing: Words That Heal James W. For example, among students susceptible to experiencing depression, expressive writing reduces the tendency to brood over negative experiences, thereby mitigating these students’ risk for depression up to six months later. These benefits have been observed for military veterans, cancer survivors, nurses, people quitting smoking, people facing unemployment, and, of course, college students. He found people’s general health and well-being improves when they write about stressful situations in their lives in an earnest way. Pennebaker, Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. Also known as journaling, expressive writing has a long history beginning with the seminal research of Dr.
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