From the web page of the Unicredit Foundation:
We are pleased to announce the winners of the 3rd edition of the Education Research Grant:
Marco Mantovani (PI) from the University of Milano-Bicocca and his team (Elena Meschi and Marco Guerzoni - Co-PIs) with the research project "Under pressure: decoupling learning and performance to reduce school anxiety."
Project abstract:
School anxiety is on the rise worldwide and is the main condition associated with school avoidance and withdrawal. Current approaches target the symptoms. We propose a field experiment to compare these approaches to a novel one that targets the causes of school anxiety. The method, jointly developed with psychologists and educationalists, aims at decoupling school grades, expectations and widely held values of merit, success and self-worth. The core idea is to fight anxiety by changing the view of academic success, framing grades as an incentive scheme that encourages learning, rather than a measure of personal merit or value.
Great job!