The Relation Between Task Value, Test Anxiety and Academic Self-Efficacy: A Moderation Analysis in High School Geography Course

Abstract

Areas where people utilize exams increase day by day. Learners intensively make an effort to achieve high scores and this process causes them to experience high levels of stress and pressure. The present study explored the moderating effect of self-efficacy beliefs in the relationship between task value and test anxiety. The research was conducted in two public high schools in Denizli (Turkey) with 729 students. 368 participants (50.5 %) were male and 361 (49.5 %) were female. Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) developed by Pintrich et al. and adapted to Turkish by Karadeniz et al. was used as the data collection tool in the study. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated in order to identify the relationship between variables. Additionally, multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine the regulating effect of self-sufficiency beliefs. The results indicated the moderating effect of self-efficacy beliefs in the relationship between task value and test anxiety. The higher self-efficacy beliefs students had, the less test anxiety they perceived. Therefore, students should be supported in a way that they can have complete, successful, and the right kind of experiences which will allow them to increase their perceptions of self-efficacy. The implications of research are discussed in light of the literature and a number of suggestions have been proposed accordingly.