94 Exam Déjà vu: Offering students the opportunity to correct mistakes on exams in undergraduate reproduction course improves self-reported test anxiety.

Abstract Animal science students must often take several overwhelming courses per semester that involve complex principles and require intense studying to complete their degree program within four years. Furthermore, many animal science students wish to attend veterinary school upon graduating with their Bachelor of Science, which has high GPA requirements for admission. The pressure to achieve high grades often outweighs a student’s focus on truly understanding course material, which can lead to test anxiety that affects both academic performance and mental well-being. Therefore, our study aimed to investigate how allowing students to correct exam mistakes for half credit influences their test anxiety in an undergraduate reproductive physiology course. Students (n = 260) took three exams throughout each semester (fall 2023 and fall 2024), with correction opportunities provided for the first two exams in both semesters. Additionally, surveys were completed throughout the semester to estimate students’ anxiety levels and perceptions of exam corrections. At the end of the semester, students completed an optional qualitative reflection on their overall experience with exam-related anxiety. Responses to the six prompts in the qualitative reflections (n = 151) were coded, categorized and merged into themes of struggles and challenges causing anxiety, positive aspects that helped with anxiety, and comparative anxiety to other courses. Pearson correlation analysis was performed between codes, and significant correlations (P ≤ 0.001) were incorporated in the matrices for network analysis. The analysis revealed five clusters (Q = 0.618). The code reflecting students’ perception of lower stress compared to other courses clustered with positive aspects for exam corrections and learning by redoing the exam. This suggests that students felt the opportunity to correct the exam mistakes helped reduce stress and positively improved their understanding of course material. The original Exam 1 (P ≤ 0.05) and Exam 2 (P ≤ 0.001) scores were better predictors for final exam scores when compared to the corrected Exam 1 (P > 0.10) and Exam 2 (P > 0.10) scores. These findings suggest that while exam corrections may help reduce student anxiety and enhance learning, they do not necessarily improve scores on the final exam, indicating that other factors may play a greater role in long-term learning and exam success.