A Critical Review of Putwain, D. W. (2011)

Putwain (2011) conducted a study that focused on the examination stress experienced by secondary students preparing for their General Certificate of Secondary Education Examinations. This research aimed at understanding the subjectivity of examination stress in students preparing for their GCSE examination and was specifically interested in four key factors identified by Denscombe (2000) and Putwain (2009), namely: aspirations, importance of GCSEs, self-worth and pressures from others. In addition, it also explored the gendered nature of examination stress mentioned by Jackson (2006). The study reveals that consideration of examination as stressful was idiosyncratic among the students. Eight distinct elements of examination stress were identified: the anticipation of failure, valuing academic achievement, poor competence beliefs, a personal predisposition to view events as threatening, workload or the lack of control over it, unfavoured assessment formats, thorough effort and preparation for forthcoming examinations, and whether ability was viewed as fixed or incremental. Gendered aspects of examination stress were also highlighted in how examinations were talked about and in subject specific competency beliefs. To the extent that this study is exploratory, findings of this research provide insights into the importance of understanding the subjective nature of examination stress experienced by GCSE candidates. However, several limitations must be considered in interpreting the study findings.

The article makes a case for studying this phenomena drawing from a number of convincing sources that include journal articles as well as academic books. But only two of these [Denscombe (2000) and Putwain (2009)] are highlighted as direc...

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...son between one male and one female student. These two were interviewed approximately two months apart (female student: beginning of spring term, male student: mid point of autumn term). The time gap might pose an issue with the reliability of such inference as well (Denzin and Lincoln, as in Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2007, p. 148)

In summary, it has to be admitted that the current research is far from being conclusive. Future studies should be undertaken utilizing better measures and a well explained sampling procedure to improve our understanding about the examination stress faced by the GCSE student. Despite some deficiencies in the methodology, to the extent this article is exploratory, i.e. trying to investigate an emerging issue, the study has provided some insights to account for the examination stress experienced by students preparing for their GCSEs.