Cognitive, emotional, and physiological components of Test Anxiety

Abstract

This study investigated sources of interference in highly test-anxious subjects performing under evaluative stress. Students from the upper and lower quartiles of the Test Anxiety Scale (Sarason, 1972) distribution took a short intellective test under either the usual test instructions or reassuring instructions. A multivariate analysis of variance revealed no effects for sex of subject, type of instructions for testing, or any of the interactions involving sex of subject, testing condition, and subject anxiety level. Subject anxiety level, however, was significant and yielded a consistent main effect on every variable except pulse rate, for which there was no effect either pretesting or posttesting. High-anxious subjects performed more poorly; felt less positive about themselves, their abilities, and the task; experienced more anxiety and felt it interfered more with performance; estimated spending less time on task; and rated themselves engaging in more worry, emotionality, and task-generated interference than did low-anxious subjects. Comparisons among the means for the high-anxious group revealed that worry and task-generated interference levels were not significantly different, but that both were higher than emotionality level. Regression analyses, however, suggested that worry was the primary source of interference, as only it consistently predicted performance and estimated time on task when common variance was controlled.