Abstract
In the context of adolescents’ subjective well-being (SWB), research has recently focused on a number of different school variables. The direction of the relationships between adolescents’ SWB, academic achievement, and test anxiety is, however, still open although reciprocal causation has been hypothesized. The present study set out to investigate to what extent SWB, academic achievement, and test anxiety influence each other over time. A sample of N = 290 11th grade students (n = 138 female; age: M = 16.54 years, SD = 0.57) completed measures of SWB and test anxiety in the time span of 1 year. Grade point average (GPA) indicated students’ academic achievement. We analyzed the reciprocal relations using cross-lagged structural equation modeling. The model fit was satisfactory for all computed models. Results indicated that the worry component of test anxiety negatively and GPA positively predicted changes in the cognitive component of SWB (life satisfaction). Worry also negatively predicted changes in the affective component of SWB. Moreover, worry negatively predicted changes in students’ GPA. Directions for future research and the differential predictive influences of academic achievement and test anxiety on adolescents’ SWB are discussed with regard to potential underlying processes.
Highlights
Both academic achievement and subjective well-being (SWB) play a major role in people’s lives
The emotionality scale of the Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI)-GE had an excellent model fit after correlating the measurement errors of those items assessing physiological signs of excitement and those items that measure the emotional components of excitement (X2 = 1.95, p = 0.14; Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 0.996; RMSEA = 0.057)
The aim of the present paper was to explore the reciprocal effects between SWB, academic achievement, and test anxiety in a sample of 290 German high school students
Summary
Both academic achievement and subjective well-being (SWB) play a major role in people’s lives. Academic achievement is important as it strongly shapes a person’s life chances (Steinmayr et al, 2014) and SWB impacts on important variables such as basic psychological needs (Tian et al, 2014) and social connections (Shankar et al, 2015). Knowing what influences these variables is of utmost importance as this is the basis for effective interventions (Byrnes and Miller, 2007). A lot of research has investigated motivational and cognitive variables as predictors of school achievement (e.g., Steinmayr and Spinath, 2009). While many studies have already examined individual determinants of students’ SWB such as personality variables (e.g., Singh and Lal, 2012; Anglim and Grant, 2014), research focusing on school variables
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