The end-of-year exams are coming. Stress, lack of sleep, anxiety… Students (and institutions!) are put to the test during this most demanding time of the year. You are responsible for preparing them for exam stress management, guiding them through this crucial period and doing everything you can to help them succeed.   

Here are our tips to best support your students through mobile technology during this stressful time.

Implement an Effective Mobile-Focused Communication Strategy

We can’t say it enough: communication is key! But sending a bunch of resources to your students by email is not the most effective way to inform them. You need to put in place a relevant communication strategy, with personalised content. Our advice: use the preferred technology of students, the one they will always keep near them, even when studying: the smartphone.

Provide Students With Useful Documents

Your students are studying hard to prepare for dozens of exams to pass. They are probably entering into panic mode: too much information to retain! Make their lives’ easier by diversifying and gathering all the resources in one same place via their mobile app:

• Provide your students with all types of content under any format: Word, PDF, Excel, Powerpoint, videos... Make these resources accessible and downloadable via their mobile app so that they don't miss any key information. 
• Give them access to diverse contents: course summaries, outlines, tutorials... but also practical information like the exam conditions. Share a maximum of ingormation with them to prepare them and avoid them from stressing out about details.

Optimise Your Communication

Make your communication more effective with the messaging feature: 

• The day before an important exam, remember to send a push notification to students to let them know when and where it will take place. This will reduce their mental load and ensure they are in the best possible conditions to succeed. 
• Target your audiences within the messaging feature. You can create student personas and categories (undergraduates, Master students…) to send the right information to the right people. That way, you don’t worry them about things that don’t concern them.

Ask For Help to the Right People

There is nothing more reassuring for students to know that they are not the only ones facing stress during the exam period. Create opportunities for students to share their best practices and advice with their peers or any other person who knows how it feels and has more experience (older students, alumni…). Request some help from different people within your institution (Student affairs, Communication or HR Departments…) to provide the right resources to stressed out students and help them take a step back during this hard time.

Also, ask for help to your staff member or external contributors to: 

• Implement discussion groups to help students express their issues. 
• Give yoga classes or teach breathing exercises to reduce stress before and during the exams.

Use your mobile app to: 

• Communicate about these events to increase the participation rates and improve your students’ chances to succeed. 
• Upload the recording of a yoga class or a summary of the breathing exercises, for instance, so that they’re alway available to students.

Are you ready to implement our strategies? If you want to know more about how to reduce student stress, download our infographic on how to support students through stressful times.