Test Anxiety Research Research Articles

Evaluating Perceptions of Test Anxiety Among Student Pharmacists and Faculty Members: A Pilot Study

ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to determine student perceptions versus actual level of test anxiety, as measured by the Cognitive Test Anxiety Scale-2 (CTAS-2), and student and faculty perceptions of test anxiety with regard to prevalence, impact, ease of treatment, and importance in pharmacy education. MethodsTwo independent Qualtrics questionnaires were distributed via email to all students and faculty in the professional pharmacy program (years 1–4) at the University of Mississippi. The first questionnaire evaluated pharmacy students’ perceptions of test anxiety and self-awareness of personal test anxiety. The second questionnaire evaluated faculty members’ perceptions of student test anxiety. The questionnaires had 50 and 21 questions, respectively, and were developed from validated, reliable questionnaires used in Cognitive Test Anxiety (CTA) research. ResultsQuestionnaires were completed by 123 students and 19 faculty. Overall, 46 % of students had a self-perception of “high test anxiety”, with 28 % having a CTAS-2 score that correlated to severe test anxiety. A majority of faculty respondents (84 %) believed severe test anxiety affects 30 % or less of pharmacy students and may be associated with poor academic performance. ConclusionStudent pharmacists’ self-perception of test anxiety and perception of difficulty mitigating test anxiety may be overestimated. Overall, faculty accurately estimated the degree of test anxiety, felt confident in being able to help students, and believed it should receive attention from both faculty and the university.

Measurement Invariance and Latent Profile Analysis of the Test Anxiety Inventory

<p style="text-align:justify">Researchers have recognized the need for updates of test anxiety scales for more measurement accuracy. However, studies that investigated the measurement invariance of the Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI), and identified the latent profiles remain scare not withstanding its wide usage in Nigeria. This might have an impact on how generalizability and reliance on outcomes from such an instrument are handled. We investigated the measurement invariance of TAI and the latent profiles among Nigerian adolescents. Gender constituted our focus in the measurement invariance given its significance in test anxiety research. Adolescent students (n=539) formed the sample of our study. We employed the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and the latent profile analysis (LPA) to measure the invariance and identify the class profiles. We found evidence of a measurement invariance across gender in both competing models given that we obtained strict measurement invariance. We also identified a four-class profile model for both male and female students: low (17.50%; 19.00%), moderate (17.50%; 34.40%), high (36.80 %; 32.80%), and very high (12.60%; 13.80%) test anxiety profiles respectively. We concluded that while the composed factors are equivalently scaled across gender that test anxious students were not monolithic given the identified profiles.</p>

Test Anxiety Research: Twenty First Century in Retrospect

Test anxiety is a type of performance anxiety. It can affect anyone from elementary students up to doctoral research candidates. Most of us experience some degree of stress or anxiety before taking an exam. However, when this distress becomes so excessive that it interferes with performance on an exam, it is known as test anxiety.

Comparative Efficacy of Hypnotherapy with Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) in Reduction of Test Anxiety and Improving Academic Performance

Test anxiety research has provided evidence that stress and adverse emotions accompany the daily experiences of students in schools and universities. Individual differences play an important role not only for students ’achievement at school, but also in their experience of test anxiety. While efficacy of CBT has been established in reduction of test anxiety and increasing academic performance, the present study was an attempt to forward the field of anxiety treatment in India by the use of Hypnotherapy in this field. In this study comparative efficacy of Hypnotherapy with both CBT and a no treatment control group was established on a sample comprising of 72 students(equal number of half boys and half girls in each sample), selected on the basis of pre-test measure TAI(Spielberger, 1980). Their previous year's academic scores and I.Q. scores (pre-test measure) were used to identify underachievers. In this study while both the active therapies were significantly efficacious in reducing test anxiety, only Hypnotherapy was found significantly efficacious in improving academic achievement as compared to the CBT and a notreatment control group. However CBT showed better results than Hypnotherapy in the reduction of Test anxiety. No significant gender differences emerged.

Annual Conference 2015 paper Anxiety manipulation in school-based research

This paper describes the issues surrounding the implementation of a modified version of the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), designed to manipulate anxiety under controlled conditions with adolescents in a schoolbased context. Such a procedure has utility in test anxiety research and associated interventions; however the manipulation of anxiety in educational settings provides practical and ethical challenges. An experimental design was employed with performance evaluation threat as the independent variable. Participants (N=30) were randomly allocated to low or high performance evaluation threat conditions; state anxiety was measured immediately pre- and post-experimental procedure. The procedure was successfully implemented and demonstrated a significant effect on participants’ anxiety levels. This paper shows it is both practically and ethically feasible to conduct research involving anxiety manipulation in a school-based context. The protocols employed have utility in research into the underlying causes of, and interventions for, test anxiety.

Latent Profile Analyses of Test Anxiety

In an era of test-based accountability, there has been a renewed interest in understanding the relationship between test anxiety and test performance. The development and validation of test anxiety scales have grown with the rise of test anxiety research. Research is needed to critically examine the psychometric properties of these scales prior to widespread use. The purpose of this brief report is to demonstrate the use of latent profile analysis (LPA) to develop test anxiety profiles on the FRIEDBEN Test Anxiety Scale. LPA was performed using a sample of 1,133 students from five high schools in a Midwestern state. Results indicate three distinct test anxiety profiles (i.e., high, mid, and low anxiety profiles).

Test anxiety inventory: 30 years later

Research suggests that test anxiety is associated with a number of maladaptive factors. The majority of test anxiety research includes the Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI) as a primary outcome variable. However, the TAI was normed on college undergraduates in 1980. The academic landscape has altered in a variety of ways in the past 30 years, which may result in out-of-date norms. This study examined changes in TAI scores in college undergraduates (n =437) as well as convergent validity with measures of trait anxiety and academic performance. Results indicated increases in TAI scores for females while holding constant for males. Additionally, females and males displayed positive correlations between the TAI and state-trait anxiety inventory, while only females displayed a significant negative correlation between the TAI and grade point average. Data provide evidence of changes in TAI scores. As a result, researchers should be careful when drawing conclusions based on original TAI norms, especially in the case of female undergraduates.

Developing and piloting a dot-probe measure of attentional bias for test anxiety

Attentional bias is a key area of research in the clinical and trait anxiety literature. In test anxiety research, however, protocols and measures have yet to be reported. Accordingly, we describe the development of a dot-probe measure of attentional bias for test anxiety. This measure was piloted on a sample of undergraduate students who completed a short, timed, cognitive ability test under high and low performance-evaluation threat conditions. As expected, highly test anxious persons reported an attentional bias towards threat stimuli under the high performance-evaluation threat condition only, consistent with a switch from an avoidant to a vigilant mode of processing. Under the low performance-evaluation threat condition, both high and low test anxious persons showed a bias away from threat stimuli. These findings suggest that test anxiety, like clinical and high trait anxiety is also characterised by attentional bias where a disproportionate amount of attentional resource is directed towards corresponding threat (i.e. test-related) stimuli.

Achievement Emotions: A Control-Value Approach

Emotions are ubiquitous in achievement settings. Apart from test anxiety research and attributional studies, psychological research has neglected these emotions. We argue that more research on the functions, origins, and regulation of achievement emotions is needed, addressing both outcome emotions related to success and failure, such as hope, pride, anxiety, shame, and hopelessness, and activity emotions such as the enjoyment and boredom experienced in achievement settings. Using Pekrun’s (2006) control-value theory of achievement emotions as a theoretical framework, we first outline a three-dimensional (object focus × valence × activation) taxonomy of achievement emotions. We then summarize research on the individual and social origins of these emotions, arguing that control appraisals, value appraisals, achievement goals, and related contextual factors are of specific relevance for achievement emotion arousal. Next, the importance of emotions for achievement behavior and performance is addressed. In conclusion, we discuss the regulation and modification of achievement emotions and their relative universality across genders, settings, and cultures.

Situated and Contextual Features of Test Anxiety in UK Adolsecent Students

Despite a literature spanning over 50 years, there has been little test anxiety research conducted on samples of school-aged students drawn from the UK. As a consequence, little in known about the test anxious experience in the UK, and whether this experience is contextualized by features of the UK educational context. For this reason, the decision has been made to break with tradition and use a qualitative methodology sensitive to contextual and situated features of exploratory research. Thirty-four students identified as highly test anxious by questionnaire were interviewed and data analysed using the procedures of grounded theory. Narratives are structured round three categories: `aspiration, failure and achievement', `anxiety and cognitive difficulties in examinations' and `anxiety and examination conditions'. Findings from the interview analysis confirmed predictions from the existing literature and models of test anxiety, and presented a challenge in the following ways. The perception of examinations as threatening could be conceptualized both as a fear of failure and a motivation to achieve, suggesting an overlap between the test anxiety and achievement goals constructs. The experiences of the final two years of compulsory schooling were conceptualized as a significant developmental antecedent of test anxiety.The perception of low ability increased the perceived likelihood of failure in a particular examination, suggesting that academic self-concept and test anxiety are also closely related constructs. Assessment performance may only be detrimentally affected when a catastrophic response follows anxiety. In summary, this article offers a new methodological approach to the study of test anxiety, sensitive to situated and contextual features of experience.

Decomposing person and occasion-specific effects: an extension of latent state-trait (LSI) theory to hierarchical LST models.

An extension of latent state-trait (LST) theory to hierarchical LST models is presented. In hierarchical LST models, the covariances between 2 or more latent traits are explained by a general 3rd-order factor, and the covariances between latent state residuals pertaining to different traits measured on the same measurement occasion are explained by 2nd-order latent occasion-specific factors. Analogous to recent developments in multitrait-multimethod methodology, all factors are interpreted in relation to factors taken as comparison standards. An empirical example from test anxiety research illustrates how estimates of additive variance components due to general trait, specific trait, occasion, state residual, method, and measurement error can be obtained using confirmatory factor analysis. Advantages and limitations of these models are discussed.

Test Anxiety Research in India: Twentieth Century in Retrospect

The twentieth century has been called "the age of anxiety". However, the concern with anxiety phenomena is as old as the history of humanity. For many years, theories of anxiety were rooted primarily in the experiences of clinical workers and the insight of the sensitive observers of the West The nebulous character of the phenomena, prompted many researchers to focus their attention on the sperific sources of anxiety in social, public speaking and test situations. The 1950s saw the spawning of test anxiety research in earnest, which began at Yale University in 1952. Almost two decades after this initiation, the first attempt to understand the antecedent of test anxiety of schoolchildren was made by Nijbawan (1972). Almost 12 years after this, a first comprehensive review of research on test anxiety was reported by Sharma and Rao (1984). This article is another attempt, scanning the brief overview of research on test anxiety in India during the twentieth century. Implications for future research in the twenty-first century have also been put forth.

テスト不安研究の動向と課題

The purpose of this paper is to review the advances and issues in test anxiety research from the point of educational psychology. According to Mandler and Sarason (1952), test anxiety considered a very important concept in educational practice is defined as “a task-irrelevant reaction debilitating in a task-oriented focus”. But as some researchers have already suggested, the concept of test anxiety is so ambiguous that it is very difficult to measure. Specially, there are main issues resulting differantly through the method of measurement. In the future, a study of the structure and developmental mechanism of test anxiety is to be emphasized, examining current test environments from the point of test anxiety level.

Refinement of Issues in Test Anxiety Research: Onward and Upward

Refinement of Issues in Test Anxiety Research: Onward and Upward

Advances in test anxiety research

Eighty-eightfive-point-items pertaining to diverse cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects of coping with test were administered to high­ school students (N = 590). A principal component analysis led to four clearly interpretable dimensions, accounting for 32% of the total variance. The questionnaire for coping with test has satisfactory psychometric properties. Two components represent a palliative function (anxiety control and repression) and the other two components an instrumental function (danger control and situation control). as an emotional pattern has undoubtedly provoked a great deal of intensive scientific discussion (see Frohlich, 1983; Izard, 1977; Last & Hersen, 1988; Spielberger, 1966a, 1972b; Tuma & Maser, 1985). It entails feelings such as fear, irritation, shame, timidity (shyness) and distress. Unfortunately, researchers have not agreed upon an exact definition of this term. That is why only the most important aspects will be discussed here: Anxiety is regarded as a phylogenetic as well as an ontogenetic state of excitation and tension which appears early in development. It correlates with specific somatic, psychic, and behavioral reactions. Anxiety can be characterized by anticipation, actual feeling, or memory of a subjectively relevant, real or virtual insecurity (horror vacui) or threat (such as inadequacy, pain or danger). It is activated by cues, which in general have been learned. Test anxiety refers to typical anxiety-eliciting situations and conditions , in the educational context dealing with training, learning, and performance (Rost, 1981; Rost & Haferkamp, 1981, 1982). Thus, test can be seen as a reaction-bound stress phenomenon on the one hand, and as a situation­

Review of Advances in Test Anxiety Research, Vol. 3.

Review of Advances in Test Anxiety Research, Vol. 3.

Text anxiety research in Western Germany: A review

Text anxiety research in West German schools is explored and measures currently used are described. Test anxiety is examined in relation to academic achievement research and theory. Distinctions between state and trait anxiety and between worry and emotionality are discussed. Test anxiety is investigated both in the traditional tripartite school system as well as in the non-traditional unitary comprehensive school. Results of several longitudinal studies point to the findings that there are socialization effects as explained by reference group theory and that these effects also are specific to the particular learning environment which the students experience in each school system. Future directions of test anxiety research in West German schools are explored.

Concurrent versus retrospective assessment in test anxiety research.

This study investigated whether retrospective and concurrent assessments in test anxiety research yield comparable data. A 3 X 2 X 2 (Test Anxiety Level X Type of Assessment X Final Exam Point) design was used. Results indicated that concurrent and retrospective assessment groups did not differ on number of positive thoughts, negative thoughts, bodily sensations, or anxiety levels. Concurrent assessment did not affect test performance. Additional analyses revealed a few significant differences on rank-ordered positive and negative thoughts for the concurrent and retrospective groups assessed at the beginning but not the middle of the test. Other results generally replicated those of a previous study. Progress in cognitive behavior therapy is linked to progress in assessment. However, developments in assessment have lagged behind therapeutic developments (Kendall & Korgeski, 1979), and the need for sound assessment procedures is clear. This study investigated a fundamental assessment problem. Using an actual test, the objective was to determine if retrospective assessment of cognitions yields data that arc comparable to those obtained by interrupting the subject (concurrent assessment) during the test. Cacioppo and Petty (1981) have called attention to the limited evidence about whether cognitive responses differ as a function of when they are obtained. Previous research (Galassi, Frierson, & Sharer, 1981) revealed that negative cognitions and bodily sensations indicative of arousal accumulate toward the end of a test. Because related studies (Deffenbachcr, 1978; Holroyd, Westbrook, Wolf, & Badhorn, 1978) investigated cognitions retrospectively, it seemed possible that their frequency had been overemphasized. In general, retrospective assessment offers the advantage of not interrupting the task (Cacioppo & Petty, 1981;

Concurrent versus retrospective assessment in test anxiety research.

Concurrent versus retrospective assessment in test anxiety research.

A Review of Test Anxiety Research

A Review of Test Anxiety Research