"Are you struggling to concentrate in this pre-exam period?" To answer affirmatively to this so direct question is more than 83% of the students who will have to face the 2020 Maturity. Because if it is true that tension is an inevitable guest of every exam eve, never as this year the the boys' anxiety seems to skyrocket. A load of tension that has fed over the months and that cannot be attributed only to the preparation of the new maxi-oral: there are the emotional aftermath of the pandemic and the lockdown, to which is added the uncertain review due to a teaching remote not always efficient and the many conflicting news circulating on the net on the subject. Without forgetting the concern about what will happen in the immediate future, the expectations of the parents, how they will be judged by others for having taken a test considered easier. A sum of factors that, at the end of the day, sends almost 50% of the test takers into tilt. To say the data of the survey - conducted on a sample of more than 10,500 students of the last year of high school - sponsored by the Di.Te. in collaboration with the Skuola.net portal, developed by the Polytechnic University of the Marche.
"Unlike other years, this maturity is proving to be much more complex for the students who will have to support it - says Giuseppe Lavenia, psychotherapist, university professor and president of the Di.Te National Association. - Mixed information circulated, which helped to create anxiety, agitation, confusion that added to the, let's say, 'ordinary' pre-examination problems. The data we collected this year show anxiety levels higher than in the past and this will certainly have consequences for the emotional experience of the children. In fact, 45% of them say they are desperate while trying to study, 52% say they do not feel any joy at the thought of closing the study path and 47% feel a lot of sadness for not being able to share this final trait with classmates ».
And then there are the practical aspects. More than 95% of the children experience a lot of uncertainty regarding the examination methods, also because of the preparation they had through distance teaching, which has not always proved effective for connection problems and, many times, for the digital unpreparedness of teachers. "Although the high school exam has been simplified, to take account of the extraordinary emergency situation, the uncertainty on the progress - the ordinances arrived on May 16, or one month before the start - combined with the solitude dictated by the physical distance between professors and classmates are literally blowing up the psycho-physical state of our high school graduates », notes Daniele Grassucci, director of the Skuola.net portal.
The numbers are impressive: 1 in 2 declares that they cannot concentrate at all, 1 in 3 that they have a lot of difficulty sleeping when thinking about the exam, just over 1 in 4 even experiences feelings of suffocation or rapid heartbeat if they stop on what awaits him. Girls report these symptoms more prominently than boys with 15 to 27 percentage points more. «A picture that must be taken into serious consideration and that - continues Grassucci - can be aggravated by further external factors, such as the high expectations of the parents. In the presence of all these conditions, we are witnessing a further increase, with the percentage of children who exhibit the above symptoms calmly exceeding 60/70% ».
Finally the clouds that, even for the youngest, are gathering on the horizon. «The future, we had already observed in the previous 'Giovani e Quarantena' research, is among the main concerns of the children - Lavenia points out - and a source of constant anxiety for 47% of the graduates. Young people struggle to imagine what will happen after the exam and this feeds anguish in most of them and, in some cases, very negative thoughts. They have many difficulties in fully sharing their emotional experience. If young people no longer manage to desire a future, to plan it, if they no longer feel the hope of being able to express their talent in society, this is a problem that should not be underestimated: it will be necessary to intervene as soon as possible with support actions ».
"That this is not a normal pre-examination crisis - concludes Grassucci - is also testified by the approval of the modality chosen for the 2020 Maturity. If, in the intentions of the Ministry, probably the oral presence was to be read as an aid for students , able to bring them back to a well-known and well-established situation, from the answers from the boys it can be seen how on the contrary they would have gladly turned to the remote mode. Faced with the prospect of going back to school to take the interview, in fact, there are more people who feel performance anxiety rising than those who say they are relieved not to have to do it online ».