“I must make the grade!”: the role of cognitive appraisals, irrational beliefs, exam anxiety, and affect, in the academic self-concept of undergraduate students

Abstract

ABSTRACT Background and objectives Examination anxiety is a common occurrence, and is potentially detrimental to student attainment. In recent theorizing, it has been suggested that cognitive appraisals, as put forth in cognitive appraisal theory, and irrational beliefs, as put forth in rational emotive behavior therapy, may interact to predict affectivity. The current research examines the antecedents and associates of examination affect and academic self-concept in undergraduate students. Design A preliminary study applied confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test the factor structure of an irrational beliefs inventory. Study 1 utilized a cross-sectional and correlational approach to testing core theoretical assumptions. Study 2 took a two-wave longitudinal and path analytical approach to examine temporal effects between target variables. Method All self-report data collection took place in the United Kingdom with university students. We recruited n = 1150, n = 362, n = 662 for preliminary, study 1, and study 2, respectively. Results Across studies, data indicated that a pattern of adaptive cognitive appraisal was associated with more advantageous affectivity, and better academic self-concept. Conclusions Reciprocal temporal relationships were revealed between many variables, supporting an interactive and bidirectional view of how cognition and affect are related pertaining to examination anxiety.