Some effects of test anxiety and presence or absence of other persons on boys' performance on a repetitive motor task

Abstract

Three experiments were conducted to investigate effects of the presence or absence of mothers, teachers, peers, and strange female adults on the performance of second- and third-grade elementary school boys who differed in levels of test anxiety. In each experiment S performed a marble-dropping task for a baseline minute. During the following 5 minutes different variations were introduced in the three experiments. In the first experiment, S's mother or female teacher entered and stayed in the experimental room in two of the treatments, while nobody other than E and S was present in the third condition. A fourth treatment was introduced into Exp. 2: a peer of S entered and stayed in the experimental room. In the third experiment, S's teacher or a strange female adult entered and stayed in the room in two of the treatments, while only E and S were present in the other condition. It was found that low test anxious boys showed response increments when any of these persons entered and stayed in the experimental room, while the presence of mothers or teachers resulted in response decrements in high test anxious boys. Conversely, when only E and S were present, low test anxious Ss showed response decrements, while high test anxious boys showed response increments under this condition.