Stress, Sleep, and Performance on Standardized Tests: Understudied Pathways to the Achievement Gap

Abstract

Children from low-socioeconomic status (SES) and racial-/ethnic-minority groups score lower on average on standardized academic tests relative to high-SES and White families, respectively (Bradbury, Corak, Waldfogel, & Washbrook, 2015;Reardon, 2011). Many factors contribute to the achievement gap, including class size, teacher characteristics, parent participation, and hunger and nutrition (Barton & Coley, 2009). Although acknowledging these factors, the present paper focuses on an understudied component of the achievement gap: how biological stress responses associated with stress exposure affect performance on standardized tests. Stress exposures come from school, home, and neighborhood factors and can affect the functioning of multiple stresssensitive biological systems. We focus here on two such systems: the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and sleep. As we show, stress-related alterations in these systems can affect students' learning and test-taking experience. We argue that achievement gaps are at least partly driven by differential stress exposure and biological stress responses between groups. The Stress Disparity ModelHere we provide a brief overview of a theoretical model of how stress exposure and resulting biological stress responses might affect academic achievement as measured by standardized tests. We call this model the stress disparity model. Figure 1 displays the pathways of this model; Figure 2 focuses on the outcomes measured as an achievement gap. We present evidence for this model throughout the paper.We begin by noting that low-SES and racial-/ethnicminority children are more likely to be exposed to stressful life events relative to higher-income or White students (Pathway A; Hatch & Dohrenwend, 2007;Repetti, Taylor, & Seeman, 2002

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Experimental sleep loss, racial bias, and the decision criterion to shoot in the Police Officer’s Dilemma task

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Testing, Stress, and Performance: How Students Respond Physiologically to High-Stakes Testing

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