EDUCATIONAL STREAMING AND GENERAL AND TEST ANXIETY

Abstract

In recent years a number of studies have been done by Sarason and others (9, Io, II, 12, 15) into the nature, effects, and correlates of test anxiety in elementary school children. The consistency and theoretical comprehensibility of their findings seem to justify the conclusion that the Yale Anxiety Scales are valid measures of general and test anxiety in the populations for which they were designed. Some of the evidence pertaining to the validity of the scales came from cross-cultural investigations of American and English school children. Sarnoff et al. (1I, 12) reported that English children had higher test anxiety scores than a comparable group of American boys and girls, and they argued that this difference was a consequence of the educational streaming practices currently used in England. In the course of a study of relations between motivational variables and quality of school performance, the present writer administered an Australian adaptation of the Yale Anxiety Scales (3) to a sample of 266 children attending primary (elementary) school in Canberra. Since there is educational streaming in these Canberra schools, it was decided to investigate the effects of this educational policy on general and test anxiety scores. The present study has two other purposes: to continue an analysis (2) of the relation between general and test anxiety and to provide further evidence of the validity of the two scales.