Abstract
<p style="text-align:justify">The study investigated differences in students’ reported overall test anxiety before, during, or after test taking among two school-levels and gender. Differences among three test anxiety components (thoughts, off-task behaviors, and autonomic reactions) were also examined. Participants were 725 primary (349 females, 376 males) and 375 middle (180 females, 195 males) school students from a metropolitan city in Turkey. Turkish students’ reported overall test anxiety declined from primary to middle school, with females showing higher test anxiety throughout school years. Whereas students rated thoughts high, autonomic reactions were rated low; followed by off-task behaviors. Female and male students did not differ in thoughts and autonomic reactions. School-level differences were found in off-task behaviors and autonomic reactions. The pattern of Turkish students’ overall test anxiety derived as a combination of thoughts, off-task behaviors, and autonomic reactions was discussed, and educational implications were offered.</p>
Highlights
Test anxiety has become a serious problem in contemporary society (Peleg, 2002) because of the ongoing importance of tests as part of assessments in education (Peleg, Deutch, & Dan 2016)
Questions remain regarding test anxiety amongst students in different years of schooling and it is unclear whether the test anxiety/test anxiety components link seen in younger primary school students present in the older middle school-level
On the basis of the literature, the following hypotheses were tested: (1) gender differences tend to be small, favoring females in overall test anxiety; (2) overall test anxiety scores tend to be higher in primary school-level; (3) females tend to report higher levels of test anxiety at the three components of test anxiety, and (4) the scores for thoughts, off-task behaviors, and autonomic reactions tend to be higher in primary school-level
Summary
Test anxiety has become a serious problem in contemporary society (Peleg, 2002) because of the ongoing importance of tests as part of assessments in education (Peleg, Deutch, & Dan 2016). In relation to the fact that potential advancement in modern society frequently depends on test performance (Peleg, 2004), test anxiety is a negative emotional response to current or prospective situation involving an evaluation. Researchers have acknowledged that test anxiety mediated the influence of student emotions (e.g., negative affect, positive affect) on test performance (Chin, Williams, Taylor, & Harvey, 2017). The majority of studies have investigated test anxiety in terms of differences associated with gender (e.g., Everson, Millsap, & Rodriguez, 1991; Wigfield & Eccles, 1989); test anxiety research employing age and/or grade level differences that in a sense mirror the differences associated with school-level remains surprisingly sparse (see Hembree, 1988). A further question centers on the specificity of test anxiety components that are differentially manifested by females and males in primary and middle school-levels
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