Amount of manifested test anxiety in the heterogeneous classroom.

Abstract

The influence of the achievement motives, the future time orientation (FTO), the level of ability, sex of S, and perceived intrinsic instrumentality of school activity (PiI) were considered in relation to manifested test anxiety (i.e., state anxiety) at school. The analyses of results, based on data from 507 pupils in the sixth grade in elementary school showed that the achievement motives and the individual's FTO played the major roles, with success-oriented pupils having lower test anxiety than failure-oriented pupils, and high FTO pupils lower test anxiety than low FTO pupils. Ability was negatively related to test anxiety, and girls had higher test anxiety than boys. The PiI revealed no main effect on test anxiety. However, its significant interaction with the other variables indicated that the influence of the personality factors on test anxiety was most pronounced under high PiI condition. A number of interactions between the variables indicated that they had a complex relation to manifested test anxiety at school.