Anxiety & Timing

Are timed tests bad for children?

Few questions in primary school spark as much debate as this one: do timed tests help or hurt? The honest answer is that it depends, and research says clearly on what.

What the research says

The evidence is more nuanced than either side usually admits. Timed practice can make children faster, and some time pressure is built into the MTC itself. But Ashcraft and Krause’s research showed that maths anxiety reduces working memory during recall in a specific, measurable way, and that time pressure triggers this even in children who know the answers.

The Hechinger Report’s 2023 summary is the most balanced overview of this debate: the harm from timed tests is clearest in children who are already anxious, and smallest in confident, well-prepared ones. The same exercise has different effects depending on the child.

Research from the SUM project, run by the Universities of Nottingham and Loughborough, points the same way and looks at learning, not just test scores. In their study, a practice game helped children learn their facts whether or not they were pushed to answer quickly. But anxious children learned less under time pressure, and once it was removed, anxiety no longer made a difference to how much they learned. As the researchers put it, time pressure doesn’t necessarily improve accuracy, so a child who doesn’t like speeded practice can practise without it. The Multiplication Tables Check itself offers a pause between questions for children who need extra support (Guy, Cragg & Gilmore, 2025).

What this means in practice

Timed tests don’t hurt every child, but they do hurt some: especially children with maths anxiety, who are also the most likely to struggle with times tables. It works better to build speed first and add the timer later than to use the timer to build speed.

Try this

Bring in a timer, informally, only once your child answers most questions quickly and confidently without one.
Present speed as a sign of how well something is learned, not as a target. “Fast means you really know it” is different from “be fast.”
If timed tests upset your child, talk to the class teacher: adjustments are possible.

→ TabTabTab builds speed first, without a visible timer. The MTC simulation, with its 6-second timer, comes only once recall is solid.

Sources

Ashcraft & Krause (2007) — peer-reviewed study
Hechinger Report (2023) — expert commentary
SUM project, Gilmore & Cragg (2025) — expert commentary
Guy, Cragg & Gilmore (2025) — expert commentary

Last reviewed: 2026-10-17