TEST ANXIETY AND THE GRE GENERAL TEST

Abstract

ABSTRACTA survey was designed and administered to a large, stratified random sample of GRE test takers in order to: provide baseline data regarding the prevalence and severity of test anxiety among GRE test takers determine the relationship of self‐reported test anxiety to GRE test performance and to examinees' knowledge/perceptions of selected aspects of GRE test taking and graduate admissions, and obtain GRE test takers' assessments of the contribution of various factors to test anxiety, as well as suggestions for minimizing test anxiety. The survey instrument included a test anxiety inventory as well as other questions seeking information about examinees' perceptions of various aspects of GRE test taking and graduate admissions. Minority test takers in each of seven ethnic or racial categories were oversampled.A significant proportion of GRE test takers report that they experience at least a moderate degree of test anxiety, and some report relatively severe anxiety. On average, however, GRE examinees do not appear to be substantially more anxious about GRE test taking than about a number of other evaluative situations.Two aspects of test anxiety–worry, i.e., cognitive concern over test performance, and emotionality, i.e., reports of physiological reactions–were found to be very strongly related, but distinguishable by virtue of their different patterns of correlations with other variables, including GRE General Test scores. Examinee self‐reports of both worry and emotionality were moderately related to test performance on each section of the GRE General Test, with higher anxiety associated with lower test performance. (These relationships were essentially identical for each ethnic or racial group considered.) Worry was more strongly related than emotionality to test performance, and, when they were considered together, only worry remained highly related to test performance. Although the relationship is clear, these results do not establish a direction of causality, i.e., whether anxiety impairs test performance, whether poor test performance increases anxiety, or whether both test anxiety and test performance are affected by some other factors. Nor do the results establish the levels at which test anxiety may facilitate rather than debilitate test taking.Examinees' knowledge of certain aspects of GRE test taking (e.g., how to cancel test scores) and their perceptions of graduate schools (e.g., their reliance on GRE scores in admission decisions) showed slight correlations with test anxiety. Examinees also perceived a number of other factors as contributing to test anxiety. These included, for example, the pressures of a timed test and the attitudes of test administrators. The conclusion was reached that test anxiety is both prevalent enough and severe enough among GRE test takers to warrant the continuing attention of the GRE Program. A number of suggestions were made for further research, which would involve determining whether or not some of the correlates of test anxiety that were identified may also be causes.