Test Anxiety - Theories

Theories

Anxiety is defined as the “psychological mechanism whereby the current intensification of a dangerous drive results in the elicitation of defences.” George Mandler and Seymour Sarason (1952), developed the theory that anxiety present in testing situations is an important determinate of test performance. Individuals that become highly anxious during tests typically perform more poorly on tests than low-test anxious persons, especially when tests are given under stressful evaluative conditions such as a post-secondary exam. The feelings of forgetfulness, or drawing a “blank” are developed because of anxiety-produced interference between relevant responses and irrelevant responses generated from the person’s anxious state. The difference in performance of a high-anxious test taker compared to a low-anxious test taker is largely due to the difference in their ability to focus on the tasks required. A low-anxious test taker is able to focus greater attention on the tasks required of them while taking the test, while a high-anxious test taker is focused on their internal self, and the anxiety they are feeling. Anxious test takers do not perform adequately on the test as their attention is divided between themselves and the test. Therefore, students with high test anxiety are unable to focus their full attention on the test. Furthermore, anxiousness is evoked when a student believes that the evaluative situation, such as an assessment, exceeds his or her intellectual, motivational, and social capabilities.

Psychologists Liebert and Morris (1967) originally attributed test anxiety to two main components: worry and emotionality. Worry refers to cognitive factors, such as negative expectations or feelings of inadequacy, and emotionality refers to the physical symptoms, such as increased heart rate, muscle tension, or butterflies. Both are aversive elements that can create anxiety, but it is the cognitive factors that have the strongest connection to performance.

Researchers Putwain, Woods & Symes (2010), found that a low academic self-concept was associated with higher worry and tension about their abilities to do well on a test. A student's metacognitive beliefs play an important role in the maintenance of negative self-beliefs.

Anxiety reactions can be generalized from previous experiences to testing situations. Feelings of inadequacy, helplessness, anticipations of punishment or loss of status and esteem manifest anxiety responses. As well, the presence of an audience can debilitate the performance of high anxious test takers and increase the performance of low anxious test takers. Interestingly, persons who score high on anxiety scales tend to describe themselves in negative, self-devaluing terms. Highly anxious test takers also blame themselves for their failure significantly more than low anxious test takers.