------------ ---- ----- ------

- ---------~---

TEST ANXIETY AND THE CLASSROOM

ENVIRONMENT IN HIGHER

EDUCATION

",

T~UDY ~NN FOURNIER

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of

Graduate Studies and Research

in Partial FUlfillme1t of the

/
'Requirements for the Degr~e
,/
, of Master of Arts Educational Psychology

McGill University

Montreal, Qu ebec

May, 1983

@ Copyr ïg ht, 1983

p -
 -- -----:'-::-.-~_ _- " ----'p!!

1
1
1

\
. ~

ABST~CT

"
..
.
This" d_esc r iptive-cor rela tional study sought to -explore

and de'sc r ib e th e
rela tionshlps among test anxie ty,
, r •
instructional variables and speciflc studen t characte ris tics

wit~in the naturalistic university classroom. Forty

students from two undergraduate classes were apminlstered a

l , •
test anxiety scale .and a student 'perceptlon que~tlormalre.

r ~he
1 Students' study habits

were also examined.

conduc ted.
nd student achievem.ent'in

Dfr:ect observation of the classroom was

Regress iod analyse s predlc t ing test anx ie ty fr om

course

.g, c.

the other variables Ylelded varying -results a.cross·classes

1 .' •
and gender of the/subjects: however, students' perceptions

of the structure 'within the class and students' ab,ility to

organlze and orient their s~udy tirne appeared to be the most

v ,.
rele,vant factor s. The nonpararne tr lC ; treatrnen t of' the

observational data conf irmed the no tion tQ the cia:sroom

1
/
'j envir. onmen t was relàted to test anxie ty. The major

i rnpllc ation w'as that the classroom in higher education 1

represen ts a cornplex environrnen t - 't:learly, future research

is warranted' in this area.

.. /
1

"!

•
.
 --- --
i '
/- --- ---- ---'-,
", 1> .. ,

.... fi RSSUME! 1
Dans cette étude descr1pt.ive et corrélatl.onnelle, nous

'avons ch erché à exam1n er et à décrire le s r ela tions en tre

()I

l'an><: Iété examens, les variables' pédagog iqueJ1 et les

!
c arac tér lS tIques particuli-ères des étudIants d'unie cîa:be

un1versitaire
...
a envl.ronnemen t naturel. Nous av~ns
adInlnlstré à quarante étudiants de premIer cy,cle un test

gradué mesu rant l'angOIsse des examens et un questionna1re

1 portant su r leur percept1on. Nous avons également étudié

.. / les habitudes de travaIl des étu dian ts ~ t le-u r rend-emen t

dans le cours. - Des observatIons directes ont été faites en

classe. Les analyses de régression prédisant l'anxIété des

examens à partir des autres variables ont prodUIt des

'-_/
)

\
résultats variables selon les classe et le sexe des sujets;

toutefois la perceptIon qu'avaient les étudiants de la

'-' structure Interne de la classes et leur faculté d'organiser

et d'orienter l~ temps consacré à l'étude semblent être les

faèteurs les plus pertinen ts. Le tra i temen t non

paramétrique ';des données provenant des observations a

conf irmé la notion selo n laquelle l' environnemen

,.. t de _ la

claSse est lié' à l'anxiété des examens. Il semble su~to1t

,:1s:, tir qu'au ",veau des études supér ieures, la classe

r lres en te un enVIr onnemen t complexe. De .tout!=! év idenc e, i,l

y auralt lieu de procéder à d'autres travaux de rechereche

sur' cette quest ion.

c
,---- ----. l,

.. I~
FACUL\ •
.. ,
n::s
~ 1
ETUDf.S J\V:V:C~~ES ET lJ; LA lŒCHEt~Ct~é: / ,/
/
!

Date

1 KO:l DE L' AUTEUR =

.,
D EPART EHENT :

TITRE DE LA THESE:
------------------~1~----------------7~---------
,
GR~.DE POS~UL'E:
,

1. Par la .prê~ente> l'auteur accorde ~ l'universHc' lk:Gjll l'?utorisatlon de

Oé!ttre cette thèse.à la disposition des lecteurs G2YlS une biblioth"è'que de
HcGil\ cJu une autre bihlioth::-'que, soit sous sa fon:!:! actuelle, soit sous for,:,
d'une reproduction. L' auteur déti~Ll t 'cepenc12at les <'litres, droits' de publica l
Il est entendu, par ailleurs" que n L la thès~> ni les longs extraits Ge C,lèt L';
. thèse ne pourront être :ivpr lro'2S ou Yt::prU::ll iL, pélr cl' ,'utres r oyens sans Il é:U Lu
risation ~crite de l'auteur. ~

2. Vl présE'nte aulorisation entre en v.l2,ueur 8 la d0tco jndj,quf'é; ci-dessus à 1105 l(

qu~ le Com.ité exécutif GU conseil I l ' é'.it vote de différer cettè date~ })an::,; (,'
cas .. la date différée !.~['n1' le ~
------.~-----------------
1

1
1 D •

/
r "
"
----------- -- .

AdrE:ssE' pCrl'1fJl1:'nt C': /

1

/' '/
-~-_.~- -'---"
..
::- -~
.
"
;.'Ôi;:.-<>----~ - - - - - - - - - - .
- - -....

Sir.l"atu ce du doyc<1 si t'ne

rCVE:rs~)
/
, . ."
 " -

.' .'
l'
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

,A nurrlber of indlvldua1s contr ibuted to

o

1
thlS projec t and

l wou1d like to ex.tend Illy thank s to th ern. .'

['
. F lr stll. and foremost, l would ' like to express my

j. Slncerest \ gratitude

Cranton, .f~r
1:
to my

her unwave(in g devotton,

t~esi,s . advlsor,

hec
Dr.

aVl,d Interest and

Patricia

h er con tinu~d encou ragemen t:.

l am a1so greatly lndebted to th e 5 tu den ts and

instructors who part~clpated -in the present stUqy - their

cooperation and kindness allowed thlS research endeavor -to

becorpe a reality.

r
The statistlcal and techmcal ass lstance . of the

consultants at the McGl11 Universlty Computing Centre was.

1
a1so gre at1y apprec ia ted .

. '\ Last, but by no means least, l am deep1y grateful 'to 'my

mother for
1 d
her patience, guidance and ex pe rtlse over ~e'
ye ar s.

This thesi)was partially'supported through funds from 1

"\

F.C.A.C. grant #EQ1241 ~and through the F.C~A.C. fellowship

\
! rcogcam.
, . ,!
,

i
l '
1 ,1
1

1
.. l-
~
'11
iii
 1 i
1

o •
1
TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUcrION ........... ~.o . . . . . . •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 1

t
" 7
2. REVIEW OF THE LIT:tj:RATURE •••.•••• ',' ••••••••••••••••••.••• 4
!
The Concept of Anxlety ...........•...•.•.... :; •••....• 4
1
The Concept of Test Anxiety .......• .' ...... : ..... : ..... 6
\

Assessment Deviees ............••.• ; •.••..•....•••...•• 8

Re 5 e arc h 0 n Tes t Anx i e t y. . . . t ' ................. .....l 0

1 Ex,perimental ,Inv~st~gationf"""""
Hypothes~s-~esting in t~e
~ ..-. ',:' ~ •••.•. 11
Classroom ...•....•.•...•. 22
,
,Test Anxiety and Academie Performance ••......•..... 39

DeSCrlptiv~
•

S tudles ...•..............•••.... ','

' 0

~ ..•• 41 /

An Ind~vidual DIfference Perspective .•••.....••...• 5[2

..
3." DESIGN OF THE STUDY ...•..••.. " ••... ',' •...••..•••..•••.. 55

Sample ............. : . . . . . , •..............••...........• 55

Instruments'·and Materials:~ ... : ...•....••........ ·•... 56 ~

.1
Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ~ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . ,. .... . 61
'

Research Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 63

Stat~stical Analysls ..•.... 1 ••••••••••••••••••••••••• 6,4

4. RESULTS •..••.....•• • ' ......................... t' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • 66

, 1

Background Information. ....( ./............................... 66

1 •

iv

• v'
)

"

e
 ',,'

.. , ,

Analyses. of Instruments and Items. . ..• 67

Prediction of Test Anxlety ......, . . . . . .". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

O.bs e r vat 1 0 n al Da ta . . . . • . . . . . • • . . . . . . . . . . . .' ............ 76

Add~ tional Informatlon. • ••...•••...• 83

Summary .. . .... .. . . . . . . .. .
,
. ....•...... 83
.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • 't • • •

r,
"

5. DISCUSSION. . .............. ................ . • •••••••••••• 86

". f

Pred~ction of Test Anxi~ ~y ..• '.of' ................. .. .86

, . Relatl0nship Between Classroom 6bservàtlons "

and Regression Res~lts .. • •••••••••••• 92 4

~

Limltations of the Present, Study ••••••••.•.....•••... 96.

1

Practlcal lmplications and Future

Recommendations •.•••.•.••...••. : .• ••••• 97

,( •
REFERE NCE S •.... . ....... " .. \.............. . • .•• ~..•••... 100
, '

APPENDICES
, •...••..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . .. . . • ...•• ',' ~ ... 108
6

/'

AppendlX A - 'InstDrumer)ts and Materials .•. '.... " . . . . . . . . . . 108

, /' 1

AppendlX B - Factor Analysls Results ... :.: .••••...•••... 120·.

/ ' C - Frequencles ...
Appendix . . . . . .......... . •••••• ~.· ••.. 124
\'

l,

v
l
 LIST OF TABLES

",- 1

l. Deserlptive Statisues": Age and Aehievement.

! J
...•.....•. 6.7
<> , ,
2, C,errelation Matrlx: Test Anxiety Items ..... ," ...•....••. 68
, . " ,
3. Correlation Matrix: Percept,lon Quest10nnalre Items .. ·•.. 70

~
4. CO,rrelat1on Matrix: Study Habit Items .• : ......••••.•••. 72

5• Correlation Matrix: Major Variable~ ....•.•...••" . . . . . . . 74

•
6. " Regr ession Analys lS Results: N =40 ••••••••••••••••••••• '75

7. Regr essio~ Anafys1s.Results! Class 1 .................................... 77

. - , '"
1
8. Regr ess~on Analys 1 S Resul ts: Class 2 ................................ ••' . 78
.". . "

9• ReÇr ession Analxs is Results: Females ..•..•..•.......•.. J.9

10. Regr essiqn Analys 1 s Results: Males ...................... 80

li.. Observational Data: Frequene~es . . . . . . . . . . . : ...•...•. "••• 82
"
12. Chi- square and C,ontl.ngency Coef f ie l.ent ~esul t~:
.
Maj or Vari~bles ............................................................ Q' ,<1 ............ .. 84

• 1

/ " . .

vi
 --------- ------------------------~------------------

1
1

CHP"PTER ONE

INTRoDucrroN
~

- , .
\,
\

Anxiety has been referred to as one of the major:

psychologie al variables in education (Toblas, 1979) •

Spielberger'·(1966) provided 'some striking detal1s on now 20%

of students categorlzed as hlghly anxious left school

because of aeademlC fa11ure whereas only'6% of a low-anxlous

group 1eft school for such reasons. Appa ren tly , the ---,

relationship between anxiety and performance ln sehool and

on classroom examlnations is a critlcal one. Since we live

ln a test-consclous and test-glvlng culture, it is not

'surpr lS lng, then, that test ?lruClety represents a pel!"vasive

problem, partlcularly for s,tu/ents ln lnstitutions ln hlg)ler !

(
educatl~.n. - ,"

Test anxiety. lS thought to represent a special case of

.general anXle ty and thlS phenomenon has - probably been in

\

/ exist~nce for as long as. 'tests have been used to evaluate

performance. Also, the construct of test anxlety has

re~ived considerable attention ln the last twenty years.

llts the llterature reVlew will suggest, a wide array, of

r esearch top ies r ela ting 'to te s t anx le ty have appeared aver
, .,
time, tapics of both a pr~ctlcal and theoretic.al nature. A

wlde V' a.tie ty of me asuremen t devie èS have be'en developed over

tte years, as weIl.

Ea rly researcb,,- whic h was predomina~ tly ex pe r imen ~al ln

nature, investigated the debilitating effects of tes,t

o
anxiety on task performance as a function af varying

r
fj
 , , .
.. ..
\
~
2. ;s..-r -

'" '4

, ~
JI '~
?
2'
"
situationàl conditions':: T,he cO.fl.dltions in these studies

included lnsEructional v,aria t"ions and

, f
performanée feedback,

La tar 's,tu dles we re r eph:sen ted by ef for ts almed ~a t examining

the relatlqnshIps betwe.en test

.
anxl:ety and a _host of.
1
, 1
var.iable s ope ra ting in educational' se ttings. 1 Th e maj or

implication from these investig a tlons the

relationshlp between test anxlety and academic perfo.~lI1a;nce

. ,-
,Apparen tly, à numbe r of \
~ L'
-'
factors probably contribute to ~ test anxlety-performa'nce
~

in teractions, includlng instructional v'arlables and the ,

instructional settlI'1g - Qas weIl' as student

/
characteristlcs, sucho as study habits and student ability.

A further suggestion iè' that it tftol.lld be appropr

, .
la te' ta
•
cons ider Indiv Id ual dif fe renc es in test ,anx le ty r.,esponses,
• 1

as many au thor s have Wd~c ated tha t earl.y resear-ch falled ;i.n

thlS regard., 1

.\
These general findlngs and trends .
suggest . that . an

exploration of the te~t anxiety v.ariable ln the classroom ,

? \ '

environment 1S" wa'rranted. ,Due to the cO!Jlplex a'nd Intriqate

, >-

nature" of these relatioAshlPS, It would appear that a

descriptive-~orre~atI0nal study, such as the present one, i.s

"
presen t
best su i ted td these Henc e, the

investlgation employed an Indlvidual difference perspectIve

in a c0nsideration of the test anxiety variable ln the

natura1istic classroom setiing.

K

Two classe:;; of university studen~s were adminlstered a

,test anx~ety scale,. a questionnaire designed to uncover

Informa tian abou t the Instructional environmen t '( s tuaen t

 '-I-~-

l
3

p.erceptl.ons questionnaHe) and' a short survey of student

study habits. Student achl.evement was also consldereà. In

'order to rela te the 'questionnal.re and lnventory responses

- wi th the cfassroom envlrorunent, '-"

dlrect observatl\n of the

lnstructors ln these two classes occurred, as weIl.

The purpose of this study, then, was to explore and

r;
de-scribe the lnteraction be tween tdst anxl.ety' and the

naturall.stic unlve't"slty clas"Sroom. Ma] or emphas is was

placed on an l.nvestl.gatlon of the contr lbutl.on of a series

of var ia,bles (e.g., 5tudent pe rcept 10n5 of in s truct 1.on,

s tudy habits, 5 tuden t achl.evernen t) to thlS r ela tlonsh lp.

(
.

Il

1
~ ---

CHAPTER TWO

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

The Concept of Anxiety

o'

'"
Mernbers of contemporary SOCle ty would at'test ta the

important lnfluence of general anxiety on everyday living.

Fear and am< ie ty have la ng been r egarded as fundamen tal

human ernotiors. May (1977) traced the h~stor~cal roots of

anxle ty in litera ture, poli t~cs, phi 10 sophy, th eology, and

other hurnan' affa~rs. S~eber (1980) described anxiety as a

"vital adaptive mechanism that forewarns man and higher

,animaIs of possible dangers and tr~ggers ~nnate and learned

coping responses" (p. 17).

prior t9 1950, theor ies of anXle ty were rooted

prlmarily ln the experiences of the clinical worker. At

that tirne Freudls psychoanalyt~c conc~ept,ions provided the

framework for most clinical interpretatlons of anxlety

phenomena. Early experimenta1 work 'was also lnfluenced by

.
Freudian notions; for ~nstance, in 1939 Mowrer forrnulated
.r
Freud1s danger signal theory of anxiety in the terminology

of stirnulus-response (S-R) psychology. Dollard an'd Mlller

(1950 ) later combined p~ychoanalytic and 1earning .theory

notions lnto a ·model of anxiety - this activity serv,ed to

extend anxiety ,. phenornêna into the PSYChOlOgica'7\ and

experimental area of inquiry.

Ouring the 1950 15, researchers. began attempts at

o
assess ing .anx ie ty quan tita tlvely and dur ing this dec ade '"
 .. •

5: _

there was a growth of anx1~ty scales, quest10nna1res and

me asu res. Anxie ty research wa 5 s t1mula ted by the

development of Taylor!s (1951, 1953) Man1fest Anx1ety Seale
•
and Mandle rand,j S. Sarason's (1952) Test Anxle ty

Questionnaire, the first of a numbe r of psy chome tr ie

"
lnstr,umen"ts designed to assess fe ar and anxie ty reactions in

adults.

Important developments ln theoties coneerned w1th

• anxiety took place ln the late flfties throu~h mid-sixtles.

At this time the Spences (Spene-e, 1958; Spence &. Spence,

1966) formula ted a th eory of emo tionally-bpsed d (l.ve Wh1Ch

incorporated elements from Hullian drlve theory. A ma] or

assumption of this - model was that there. exist important

indivldual differences ln emotional respons1veness (Le.,

(
anxiet;.y) whieh contribute to - drive level. Further, habit

strength - and drive are assumed to combine in a

mul t iplic ative fashion to de te rmine pe rfoIimanc e ln le arning

h •
tasks. Aceordïng to the Spenc e d rlve theory,. hig h anxie ty

should faei l i ta te pe rfo"r ma ne e wh en .cor reet r~êpènses are

dominan't and should le ad to deeremen ts in pe rforma'h~h en

• eo~e ting ,(e rroneous) r esponse tendeneie sare abundan t.

Spielb-er'ger (1966; 1972) proposed a tra1t-state theory

as a conc eptu al fr amework for vie wing resea:rch and theory on

anxie ty. With the appearance of thlS new psychosoelal

/
perspective there was a dècline ln the emphasis (of earller

literature)' on emotl.onal reactivity. Spielberger (1966) \

discriminated anxiety as a transitory emotional state and as

.a1.reiatively stable personality tralt. He suggesteéi that

..
 ---------..",

anxie ty states (A-s tates) by:

... subjectIve, consciously perceived feelings of

apprèhension and tension accornpan~ed by or
associated w~th actlvation or arousal of the
au tonornic ne rvous sys tern., Anx ~e ty as a
personality tralt (A-tra~t) would seern to Imply a
rno,ti~e or acquired behavioral dlSposltlon that
,pré01SPOSt. an Indlvldual to percelve a wide range
of object vely nondangerous circumstances " as
threatenin (p. 16-17). .
"
Later ln estigators becarne Inte,res,ted. ln examiSl'ng ...
" ~
an~ie ty ln definable il s it°t1àtlonal cQ'htexts. Thus, sorne

turned their attel")ti'on to speclflé sources of anxietYr such

as. social anxie ty and test anxlety. 'l'he ernphas is of the

pr esen t drsc uss ion is on test anxie ty . (TA) 1. pcobably the

rnost widely studied of ,these' speclfic anxleti s.

The Concept of Test Anxiety"

Eyen though test anxlety has prove:n to be a difficult

') - .-
cons truc t to def ine, a var ie ty of conceptu aliza tions have
1

appeared throughout the years. In an early report on \

anxie ty and learning, Mandle r and S. Sarason (1952)

described the anx ie ty drive in test~ng S"ituatio~s as

composed of: a) anxie ty responses "r elevan t
1
i

to ,the 1 task"

which r educe anxie ty by le adlng to cornple t~on of the task i

-
and b) anxiety responses "irre1evant to the task" which may

be manlfested as feelings of inadequacy, helplessness, and

.
helghtened sornatic reactionS'. Liebe rt and Mor l'is (196 7) ~

advanc ed a two factor model, separating test anxiety into

"w~r:!, "and "erno t.ionali ty" componen ts. Br,ief 1y s ta ted,

worry entalls the cognitive elernents of the test ~([lxiety

, ' .
 ,"

expe p.enc e, sud\. as negative e,xpec~ons and cognl t ive

t
concerns abou~'_~Q--,J1e~elf .. and th e s i tua t io n at hand.

Emotionality refers to tne phys iolog ~c al, au tonom-lC

react Lons wh1.ch tend to occur under examination 5 tress. '

Later definltions placed greater emphas1.s 'on the

• >
cogni t ive aspects qf te st anxie ty. Wlne (1971) suggested

that there eXlsts a noticeable dlfference in the attentional

focus of high test-anxious and low test-anx1.ous persons.

Apparen tly, dur ing task pe rformane e th e low te st-anxious

lndividual is focused on task-relevant v.an.ables 'while the \

hlghly test-anxious subject is "internalJ.y focused on

self-evaluative, sel f-deprec atory . thlnk lr:9 and the

perception of autonomie resporises" (p. 92). (1 n te res tlngly

( enough, these ideas represent restatements of test anxiety

\J theory as originally . advanced by Mandler and Sarason ln

1952) •

Sarason (1978) ~9gested that when the characterist1.cs

of anxiety are linked to academlc or evaluative situat1.ons,

it is appropr,iate to speak of test anxiety. Itwin Sarason's

explanation of te st anxie ty incor~ora tes elemen t5 of Je r i

Wine's thlnking and also Cl; sely paral1els, Liebe rt and

,"
1.:
hig hly
Morris's model.
..
test-anxious person worrles about
Sarason / proposes
i
that the

examlna tlons and displays

• r

physJolog lC al react ions that· accompany th e wor: ry. Wor ry 15

described by Sarason (1978) 'as a "co~nltive1y del1landlng

activity marked 9Y self-preoccupation, self-depreciat1.on,

and concern over the consequences of poor performance" (p.

,1
)
198) • In addition, worry is expected' to ln te rfe re Wl th

1
 -------.t-,

1
~

performance on tas\l;s where eva1uation i5 ernpha5ized.

It wou1d appear that rnost modern theorists w'ou1d accept

.
an attentiona1 interpretatlon. of the 'adverse affects

.resu1ting from c9gni~ive in te rfe r~nc e occurr ing dur ing

d:.estlng situatlons. Fu r th errnor e, Wine (1980) recently

advoc ated a cogni t ive-a tten tiona1 mode1 for test anx ie ty

research, an approach which regards ...test anxiety as a

multidlmensional construct. This approach a1so'attempts to

sep~ra te t\1e cons~ruct ln to its cognitive, beha~iora1, and

af lec t ive compo'nen ts.

Assessrnent Deviees

.A series of :se1f-report instruments have been developed

te measure t-est anxiety. The first of, these, the Test

Anxiety Questionnaire (TAQ) (Mand1e

, r & S. Sa rason, 1952),
1

original1y contained 42 ltems assesslng the degree of,

discomfort e~perienced durlng examinatlons. Despite lts

wldespread use ln the 1950's and 1960's~' it wou1d appear

that the TAQ is now consldered an outdated rneasure.

The Achievernent Anxiety Test (AAT) (A1pert & HabeL

1960) was designed to measure both facilitating and

debi1itating anxiety. This 28-item, Likert-type sc~üe

inc1udes n~utra1 buffer ltems, In cornrnenting on the AAT,

Spie1berger et al. (1978) have .claimed that because the MT

items were selected accordlng 'to their close relationship

wlth academic performance measures, this represents q

confounding of the anxiety experienced in testing sltuations

 •
9
.
with actual test performance. Addlt~onally, predictions

about subJects with high scores on both the debllltatlng and

facilitat~ng aoxlety scales are problemat~c.

Liebe rt , and Morris (1967) constructed ttJ, e

t
'I()'
Wor ry-Embtionali ty Questionnaire (WEQ) t I a n in·str ment

composed of TAQ Hems WhlCh were modlf led to refer 10 the

particlpant's lInmedlate feelings. The lÜ-item, Likert-type

lnventory contalns f 1.ve items that form

.
the Worry sca).e
~

wh~le the rema1.nl.ng five ltems form the Emotionallty scale.

Or ig lnally c one e1.ved of me rely as a sh or t pr e-exam ination

questionnai re, th e WEQ and the theory su r rounding 1 t have,

nev'ertheless, iAfluenced,many researchers and investlgators

involved ln the constructl.on of cést anx le ty sc ales.

... ~~~ -~
\
-
A popular 1.ndex lS the 37":(tem Test Anxiety Scale (TAS)

(1. Sarason, 1972; 1978) WhlCh also repr esen ts an ou tgrowth

of the· TAQ. 'The TAS is a true/false 1.nstrument measurlng

self-reported test anxiety (see 1. Sarason (1978) for an

) .
extenslVe reviewof the validity' and reliabllity of the

TAS). 1'he or ~g {na1 TAS 'i tems have u ndergone a numbe r of

rev is 10ns and the more rec en t and le ngthie r edi t 1.on (1 .
..
Sa ra son, 197 8t wa s construç ted in an ef for t to incre ase the

sensitiv1.ty and rellability of the scale. Appatently, the

la rg e amoun t of ,da ta on this sc ale has pe rmi t te d sound

re11.abi1ity and va1idity informa't1.on to become avai1able,

"
the suggestion being that the TAS 15 an appr opr la te too1 fat
•
the assessment of test anxlety.
e
..
Spielbefger et al. (1978; 198Q) have also contributed

to test anxlety research througn the d,evelopment of the Test

1
1- 1
 10

Anx ie ty Inven tory (TAI) • contains ltems 'from the

\-
TAS and other items designed by the authors tb measure worry!

and emotion·ality. The purpos'e of ihis lnstrument lS to

provige a~'measure of "slt\Jatlon-sp~ if~c anxiety jltraits".

Pa'!"ticiparits respond to the ite'ms on ·a ,4~point rating, scale

and the .1nventOL'y yields an Emotionality score, a Worry

sc~ and a Total test anxlety score. Spielberger, et ai.

(I~'in clalm that the TAI has hi,gh internaI conslstency and'
'...
is highly correlated with other frequently used test a'nxiety

instr6ments. The TAI holds promise as a potentl.al tool to

be used ln the assessment of test anxiety. .....

Research on Test Anxiety c

Accordlng. t'o I. Sa rason (1980), re search on te st

anxiety falls ln to two general, areas: (1 )

hypothes is-te sting, labor a tory,' Éleld and developmen tal

studles of persans d1ffering ln test anxiety, 'and (2)

applied studies, most of WhlCh aim a t allevia tlng test

anxiety and its -' negative effects. The latter category

t
contain s a numbe r 'Of proml.s ing treatmen t appr oach es; however

a discus s ion of this subJ ect area lS beyond' the sc ope of the .'

present review. (For an overvlew of the treatmen t

.' l
literature,' the reader is referred to I. Sarason's (1980)

r ecen t
~
work: Test Anxie ty: Theory, Rese arch and
"

Applications. Lawrence Erlbaum Assoclates, Inc~,). Studies

fr am the forme r category wi 11 be pr esen ted, according' ta an

org aniza tional struc'ture

,.. tha t the pr esen t au thor has impo sed
i
 Il
on the research.

Experimental Investigatloons

These

eXFerimental
s tudloe s

variables
lnvolve

{assumed
the ma~ipulation.

to be related
of
1
certaln

to test

anxietYl ln predominantly laboratory settings.

l;nstructional manipulations. A number of :lnvestigators

have examined the relationship between test anxiety and

specifloc situatlonal condJ..tions.' According ta Win~'s (1971)

reVlew," instructioral var ia tionp typlcally i~volve

cornpariS'ons of: {al! ego lnholvl.ng 1. hloghly motlvating /

achievemen t orienting lnstructions WhlCh lnform the

subject that hlS task performance .. will reflect hlos abill:ty;

{ ( b) m1nlmal or even neutral task lnstructions; and {cl

instructions ~assuring the subJect _that his t.)sk performance

-will QQ.È be used to evaluate hlm.

For example,
.
Long and Bessemer (1971)
.
'
conduct~d a study
,
. ""
on

co11eg~
palored-assoc~ate

studen ts under

st';1dehts,
learnlng with

graded instruction l

were exposed
1
to
igh and low

'COndl.tlOns.

specifie
test~anxious

Subjects,

instructions

between the 8th and 9th (of a total of 12) palred-associate

lists. These "motlovatlng" instructl.ons were varied {'gradedl

50 that each lnstructional condltlon dlffered from the rest

by the addl. tion of only one component. Thus, the

lnstructions lnltloally pOln ted out that the task was a test'.

Secol'ldly,
t.
the te st was loden tif led as one 'of in telll.g enc e.

Finall,y, mention was made of a eomparison of the subject'i;>

 -- ,----
,- 12

performance on this measure with that of s im~ la r -

indiv idua1s: It was revea1ed that lnstruct~ons mentloning a

test, iden,tifying it as a me'!l~re of intel1tgenC~ and

suggesting that'comparative evaluation of performance was, to

fol1ow", produced the strongest effect of test anxiety.

Apparen tly, this comple te se t of ln s;truct ional ~ c~JIlPonen ts

might be effectiv;ly emp10yed when 0rels aim is to produce

decrements ~n the performance of high1y test-an)(ious

subjec ts.

An lnteresting experiment with mode1ing (I. Sarason,

1975) had 1;11gh and low anxiety groups'perform a learning

task after,recelving elth~r achlevement-orien~ing or neutral

instructions. The 200 subjects were female'undergraduat~s

who had been adminis te red the TAS pr ior to the commenc emen t
..' no ...

of the study .. Of relevance to the presert discussion was

th'e dlscovery of a s ignif lcan t Test Anx ie ty by Instruct ions

in te rac t ion, the suggestion belng tha t whi le th e low

,
test-anxious subjects appeared superlor in their performance
. '

under achievement-orienting conditions, this pattern of

effects was reversed under neut+al conditlons. The author

...
noted that tflese findings were consls'tènt with- the view (I. >

Sarasôn, 1972) tha t hig h test-anxious lndivlduals ar~

-debilitated by personal evaluative threats such as those

posed by achievemen t-rela ted, Instructions; however, in the' ,

1
1

absence of these threats the perfomance levels . of the high

test'-anxious persans are appropriate.

In a series of experiments 1. Sarason-and Stoops (1978)

1atér examined the relatlonship between test anxïety and'

 J

13
achievernent-oriented Instructions wifh "tirne perception" as

an add1 t ional variable. After be1ng given e1thet

achievernent-orienting or neutra1 Instructions subjects

(undergraduates) wa~ted for an -undesignated period of tIme

before' perfa>rrning an in tellectu'al task. Th e Investig a tor s

--~----'W'N"ee--l:r'ec--a-±-so -i-A-t~r"8-S-t-è-d----in di Sc-0v-er i-ng - -how -t ime-p-a-s-ses for

subjects while awaiting evaluation (le., the task),. The

overall findings from the three experiments inâicated tha,t:

, '
the hig h test-anxious subject 's time estirnates" were

sig nif ic an tly 9 reate r than th e es tlma te s of th e 0 ther

subjects. Wi th regard to the irfstructional manipula tions,

it was found that tiiigh test-anxious indl.viduals performed at

, .
s igniflcan,tly Iower leveis thàn did low and middle scorers

-Î
1 when emphasis was placed on the evaluatlonal- impllcatlonS of

( / pe rformance'. .It would appear that, under stress, highly

anxious persons experience cognit!1ve in te rfe renc e and "1

preoccupation that makes time pass slowly and reSults in

ina'dequate performance.
..
Si~ilarly, Deffenbacher (1978) selected, students from
1 the upper and lower portions of the TAS.who solved difficult

anagrams under the following conditions: (a) tiigh-stress or

ego-involving i~structions, ~nd (b) low-stress instructions,

e,quiv a1en t to a ty pic al, r eassu rance condi t ion. Thus, this

study ernployed a 2 X 2 factor ia1 design consisting of these

subject groupings: high ânx le ty-h 19 h stress; hjl g h

anxiety-low stress; ~low anxiety-hl.gh stress~ and jlow

anxiety-lo,w stress. Further, sUbjects. responded to a J?O$t

task questionnaire indic ating the exten t of cer'~ain

, .
 '-_._, ----.......-----------

14

anx ie-ty-r ela ted thoughts, feelings (ehaVior s that

occurred during testing.

The major fin,dings were that the high anxiety-high

stress group (a) reacted more negatively to testing; (b)

fi solved fewer anagramsi (c) spent less' t1me, on task; (d)

experienced
.greater
'
1nterference \from anxiety; and (e)

réported heigh~enèà physiological arousai than, dict ==either

the hig li anx ie ty-low stress or low anx ie ty-hig h stress

9roups. The authpr concluded:

... for' the h1ghly anxIous, evaluative stress

appeared to elicit lnterfering anx1ety'in the form
of attention to worrlsome thou'ghts and
ruminations, phys 1010g ic al a rousal and upse t, and
'elements of the task .lrrelevant to efficient'
problem Solut1on (Deffen~acher, 1'978, p. 252·).

Despite the apparent robustness of these effects, it mus't be

.
noted that, even though, the investigatQr offered sorne

explanations for the f indings of the ;ow a'nxle ty-l~w s,tre~~

1
\

group, these results were puzzl~ng. HQwev~r, the general

findings, from the study did provl.de support for cur1:'ent

def in i t io ns and th eor ie.s of te st anx ie ty .

')

. The group of stucÜes described above.. eX,arnined

situational' factors that cOI1tribute to th,e differential

performahc e of high and low tes.t-anxious . persons; in

evaluative situations. Thes'e s.tudles contain sorne relevant

implications. For on€ thing,. tbe l.ndication is tha,t h1g h

test-anxious individu ais perform . more poorly wh en

achievemen t lS emphas ized. On the oth~r hand, h~g h

test-anx ious sUh>jects show lmpr oved ' pe ~forma'!1c e and low

test-anxious persons s~ow 1nferior .performance çm tasks with

,
instructions designed to allay anx ie ty. Despi te the
 ..

15

artificial nature of the tasks employed and the contrived,

laboratory environments in these studies, the suggestion is

\
,1 that -an investigation of instructional factors is important.
• 1
.In addi t ion, an examtnation of the influenc e of

instructional variables' in natural envirorunents

classroom) would also appear appropriate.

Performanc e repo:ts (feedback) . .Expe r imen tal

\
manipulations of the performance reports given ta subjects

differing in test aruciety levels ' reFlresents another area of

inquiry. In an early study, Mandler ar1d S.B. Sarason (1952)

investigated the influence of anxiety level on performance

on intelligence test items., TwO. groups of university

students (21 high-anxious subjects. and 21 10jl-anxious

(
( subjl>ects) were se1ected according their results on a 67-item

anxie ty questionnaire. ''''AIl

, l'
subjects 'we re given six tr iais

each on the block design , and-- digit symb01 subtests

~
of the

Wechsler.-Bellevue I.Q. test. Subjects were told either:

(1) that théy had done very well (suc!cess report), or (2)
"-
1
,
o very badly (faiJ;.ure report), or (3) we.re told to go on to

the second part (neu tral con~H t ion) '. In the second section

of the study, the students were once, ag,ain given six trials
(' .
, ,
on block design and digit symbo1 tasks. It appeared that an

intervening report (of either success or failure)' resulted

in improved performance for the low anx,iety group but

lowered scores for the high anxiety subjects. Mandler and 1

5.B. 5arason suggested that the optimal conditions for high
1
anx:j.ety groups are those in which no further reference" i~

< ". " .

1
'~--o'
 he.- iWe...."~r,...,.
/

1
1

Q
16
made ta the testing 'situation wh~le low-anxious students

prof it by such refe renc es-, pa rt ic ula rly 0' fai lu re-r ela ted
~

repor ts.
f
In a close examination of failure experiences per say,
Dor is and S.B. Saraso n (1955) ~nvestigated whether high
anxiety and ...... low anxiety groups woulq ditfer in their
assignment of blame in a failu're situation. As pr edic ted,
high anxiety. sUbjects blamed
, ~
themselv~s . more (as opposed to

"other than self'" sources) than low arlxie ty subjects. The

high anxiety ind~viduals were also more consistent -in the

direction: of their blame .assignment than were the

\' ...
:low-anxious subjects. ~

A later study ~McMahon, ct9i3) ~rovided results that

were slightly at odds with those of ~andler anQ S.B. Satason

(1952). McMahon examined the effects of knowledge ol test-

results (as a form of feedback oro performance report) on the .,
'. /
- ~

academic performal1p e and anx.ie ty level of 222 fr eshmen. 'rh e

, ,
,.'
School and Test (SCAT) was used 'as a

prediotor of academic performance and the TAS (I. Sarasdn &

' ..
Ganze r, 1962) was the test anxie ty sc ale employed. Three

groups, containing 74 sUbjects each, were expo-sed to

- the ,
-,
f@llowing conditions: ( a) a de tai led-knowleds e q:r;oup was
, ,~

given a written interpretatoion of , their SCAT resul'ts; '(b) a

limited-knowledse group received only the conve'rted sc'Ore

data from their SCAT results~ and ·(c:t a no-knowleoge group

received nelther a written inte'rprètption 'nor converted
T

sc or e da ta f r am th e seA T . \.

'wi th respect to test anxiety, the detaile~-know1edT

' ..
..
l'
~~~-----

--~- - --- -- ---- ------~--------------------

17
group scored signlfieantly higher on the TAS than dld the
(
other two groups. McMahon .obServed that a lirnited arnount of

feedbaek may have the tendeney to-reduee test anxlety, but

too mueh or too littlè Information may Increase the anxiety

level of the studen t. Contrary to the f 1ndings by Mandler

1:
and S.B. Sarason (1952), McMahon dlscovered that bath high

anxiety and low anxiety groups ma)' benefit when referenee 15

é
made to performanc e levels. Appa ren tly , hlg h anx ie ty

subjeets appreclate and profit from lim1ted information in

the form of feedback of results.

Snyder and Katahn (1973) performed an innovative study

\
of the effect on eomplex verbal· learning of comparison-level

fee<;iback. The 90 ma1e- students ln the experiment were

selected according to their scores On a modified verSlOn of

the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) (Spielberger et al,

1970) . (Snyder & Ka tahn (1970) had prevlol!ls1y modified the

--instructIons on the STAI in "IlOrder .... 0 measure test anxiecty;

~
the new version was refe rred to by~ theI\l as the STAr/ta) .

The comparison-level variable consBted

, of feedback about

the performance of previous subjects on the same verbal

l
learning task. Subjects within each anxie ty level
. ~ ,
(low-anxidus, middle-anxious, or· high-anxious) were randomly

assigned to eiher a 1ow, average, or higp comparison .level.

Of in te rest are
.. the resul ts lndlC ating' the cons is tency
1
wl.th which performance can be irnproved by givi\l;g subjeet'S a

lower c?mpar_~.so.n. level. The suggestion is that a more

beneficial 1eariling set may, result if the student is

encouraged té compare Bis performance with a lower standard. li,

 18
Surpr is ing ly, the" au thdr'~/ did not dlscover the usual

decrement in performance as a function of test anxlety

l"evel. Nevertheless, anxièty as rneasure9 by the STAr/ta,.

did accurately predlct ongoi'ng negat~ve affect (rneasured

through self-report· of emotional . reactions and affect).

Thus, negative affect was,significantly hi~her for the.high

anxiety group than the J..ow anxiety group. On the other

hand, the higher scores on· the STAI/ta tended to relate both

to more negative affect and to better performance as viéwed

by the "higher .attention" op the part of the high anxiety

subjects. Snyder an~ Katahn attributed these dlscrepant

findings concerning test anxie ty. and performance:c to factor s

--....
ope ra ting ln the subjec t pop ula tion empl,?yed for the s tudy.

Taken together, this group of . 'studies pr ovided

lntr-iguing results' concerning the po ten t inf lu enc e of

v
feedback on student per,forrnance and student test anxiety

leveis. Nevertheless, i t shoulG. be 'noted that th e te sts and

tasks employed (Lé."block design and digit span, SCAT, and

complex verbal learnlng) represent standardized measures ()f

)

lnte,lligence and cognitivé processes. One mig ht conclu·de

--- -
that these measures do not necessarily correlate very well

with actual classroom tests nor do they represent tytcal

aspects of classroom functioning. There!ore, an examination

o~ the feedback vatiable in the nab,tral college s~tting

would appe a r appr opr i? te .

Role of the experimenter. Studies ernploying the

experimenter as a vaiiable are uncommon, at least where test

.,

. ,
, .

19

amne ty research is concerned. Nevertheless, sorne s tudle s

dernonstrating the influence over the sllbject's beh~ior by

the' experimenter have appeared in the literature. An

-
interesting example is an investigation by l.G. Sarason

(1975) where high and 10w anxiety groups p~rformed a

learning task after receiving eit"her achlevement-orienting

1

or neutral instructions. Th e 200 fema le subjects we re

grouped further in terms of the opportunities afforded them

" to observe ,the experimenter engage in self-presentation.

Thus, the experimente.r dlsclosed information about her

typlcal reactians ta testing and evaluative situations.

Th e Œ:ond1t ions we re as fa11ows: (al coplng anxiaus

mod el: th e .expe ri men te r admi t ted to experiencing test

anxie ty but disc10sed ways of deallng with iti ( bl

non-coping anxio~s mOdel: the ext>erimenter adIutted to test

anxiety but did not indicate an abllity to cape with it; (c)
i.

low-:-anxious model: the model described herself as unworrieç

about taking tests; (dl neutral model: the model spoke on

t

'campus lifei and (el control: ,fpthe experirnenter proc,eeded

, direc tly' to adminis te r the verbal learning task. l t wa s

hypothesized that these disclosures would differen tially

serve as modeled informa tian for hi,gil- and low test-anxious

groups. Sarason was also interest_~d in discovering the

effect that instructions (either

achievemen t-or ien ting ould have on these

self-disclo sures. 1

The investigator significant Test Anxiety by

Condl tiorls i-n,t;eraction.

.
Thus, the high test ,anxiety group ..
1.,'
~

.
 20
'!' ~

demonstrated a slgnificantly -nigher mean number "of correct

responses on the task after viewing the coping model.

S,a ra 50 n sugg es ted tha t th e opportunity to observe an

experimenter who admitted to test anx,iety but who mentioned

ways of coping with i t (condition, (a)) gave the hlgh

test-anxious subjects modeled lnforma tion that was usable in

performing the seriai iearning task.· It is worth noting

that the high and low test anxiety groups, when given the

opportunity to obse rve a coping model, pe rformed at

comparable leveis u nder achievemen t-or ien ting instruc tions.

It would appear that the high test-anxious lndlviduals who

lnteracted with the coping model experienced facilitation of ."

performance~ on the "-

o~her hand, the series of observational

opportunlties used in the experiment had no significant

effect on 10w test-anxious subjects .

.. Recently, I.G. Sarason (1981) p'erformed a series of
experiments on the relationships ~ong test anxiety, stress

and social support. Sa rason desc r ibed social suppor t in

generaJ. terms as "the existence or availability of people

.
with whom one can aSSOCl.ate and on whom one can rely" (p .

101) • Of interest to the present discussion are the

f indings from the second experiment in WhlCh 80

"

undergraduates who had been prescreen'ed on the TAS '(Sarason,

1972; 1978) performed difficult intellectual problems. This

stady involved the manipulation of a novel element: social

support, as communicated by an authority figure (the

experimen~er). Emphasis was placed on the ex pe rime n te rIs

accePtanc~ of and regard for the subject - the idea being

1
..

21
that when a persan feels valued, anxious self-preoccupat.lon
.
decreases. Thus, subjects in the study solved difficu1t

anagrams under the fôllowing experimental cQnditions~ '(1)

stress-ar::ousing or aChieyement-orienting instructions; (2) à

cont)': 01 cond~.tion; (3) an acc eptanc e candi t ion, in which

soclal suppor t fr om an au thor i ty fig ure was pr ovided; and

(4) a' combination of the acceptance and stress. ar,ousal

candit i'6ns.

Two fêatures of the results warrant mention. Ore is

the spec ial ,benef i ts hig hly te stlarofious subj ec ts ~eemed ta

der ive fr om the social suppor t in condi t ion three. Th e

o
other is th6J fact that, when combined with .the

achievemen ti'or len ting lnstruc tions; the suppor t condi t ion

seems to have counteracted the negative effect these

instuctions typically have on"lndlvlduals high ln test

aruciety. The social support appears to have aided the

performance of the hig hly test-anxious' subJects: This form

of acceptance also seemed to inf1u ence the

self-preoccupation of these individuals by reduclng the

cognitive interference that might have resulted from the

stress-arous ing instructions. Further evidenc e of the

social' suppor ~ var iable was found in ex pe r imen t one where

support came from association with peers - the hlgh test

~
anxiety gEouP specificaIIy benefited from this condition.

These two novel and well-planned ex pe nmen tal

investig ations yielded needed informa tlo.n on the

experimencer as a variable in test anxiety research. The

.
implication is that authority figures play an important role

\
>
l
 22
in student performance on academic tasks as well as ln the

development of test anxie ty in studen ts. Descriptive

research into the role of the instructor as an authority

figure and

the influence
as a model might provide

over student behavior

Ui efUl

a d over
lnforma t:.ion on
s tu dén t te st

anx ie ty levels by instructor s. In ....addl. t ion, these

inve~tigative efforts mig ht also delineate appropriate

1
rese~rch stra teg ie s to be e~ployed in s tudle s examinl.ng th e
1

test ànxiety vq.riç~le as well as those ,studies' concerned

~ith the interaction bet~n instructors and students in

natural classroom environments.

Hypo thes is-testing ici the Cla ssr oom

ThlS section éontains research involving: (1) te'st

anxiety and testing procedures - typically, these studies J.

investigate the rela tionship be tween general ,test

characteristics (e.<gJ., frêquent versus infrequent exams,

kinds of evalu~tion formats) and test anxiety~ (2) reactions

to' speci f ic te st sett ings - th ese investig a tions examine

student behavior, reactions and attitudes (usually durl.ng

actu al te sts) to the manip ula tion of spec if ic factor s (e. g. 1

the examination instructions) considered to be rela ted to

tes t a nx i e ty ; and (3) test anxiety and instructional

~

variables - this subsection re,views. studies.l.nvestigating

the relationship, in the classrooijl environment, between test

anxiety and instructional characteristics (e.g. 1 speciflc

instructional techniques and methods).

 l,

....

23
•
Test anx le ty and te ~tin9 pr ocedure s. Mi lton (198 0) has

d esc r ibed t~sting as a gre at "r ecord-keeping exe rcise" and

he c1airns that, educational instl.tutions are obsessed with

nurnbe rs. Mi lton believes that instr\lctor s possess

inc redible powe r bo th as educ ator s and as ev alu a tor s of

studen~ learning. Further, he suggests that sorne students

are quite test-sophistlcated: they have learned successful

test-taking strategies. Apparently, hlghly test-anxious

~
individuals would not be included in this group. ,Marso

(l9 7 0) also no ted the possible inhlbiting effect of test

'\
anxiety on classroorn performance - he indlca~ed, as weil,
..
tha't testl.ng pr ocedures sh ould be developed ta reduc e this
,
negative effect.

Sorn~ investigators (e.g., Fich ten & Adler, 1977;

!
{
J anisse, 197.3) have a tte~pte d to dl.scover how c ertal.n

elements surrotinding tests and testing procedures l.nteract

wltR test' anxiety. Fichten and Adler (1977) g'ave' 200

co11ege students
(
the opportunity t'à take a second course

examination soon after the fl.rst (a retest condition on the

same conten t) . It was expected that the use of the optional

..

retest procedure would reduce test anxl.ety to a reasonable

level and would result in lInproved test score's. Most of the

te sts used ln the study consl.sted of mult"iple-choice

questions while sorne also contalned both mult,~ple-cholCe and

short-answer items. Two rneasures of test anxl.ety were used,

one of WhlCh cons is ted of s~uden t scor e s on 1. terns 2,9 to 39

of the College forrn of the TAQ, developed by Mandler and

S.B. Sara son (1952). A second rneasure of exarnination

 fi

'. 24
anxie ty wa s formul~ ted in orde r t,o assess anxiety

experienced at the time of testing this me asu te was

f '
composed of studen t scores' on the Lilçert - type item, uHow
~
anxious are you now?" (refe rred to as th e Ea ite~
,.-~

Th e resu l ts demons
• 1
tra t;ed that s tuden ts in th e opt ~onai

retest condition achieved higher examination grades than

~

.' tho,se ~n th e te st-onc e ~ondi t ion . .) I·t should be no ted,

however, that no significant d~fferences were found between

the scores of the subjects ln the two conditions on 'the

f irst test. Thus, the higher overall examination gr'ades

app,eared to be a consequence of the hig her second test

scores obtained by those studen ts who rewrote the test. No

sigrHficant differences between the two Iconditi~ns (optionai )

retest and test-once condltion) were obtained on the TAQ;

therefore, it was conciuded that the group of students did

not differ initially in anxiety.

On the other hand, allowing students the option to be

retested resulted in lower specific test anxiety aS'measured

by the Ea ~tem and this effec t was espec ially apparen t at

the énd of the term.· resul t, although

intriguing, must be regard~d wi:th caution since it d.epends

on the sc,ores from a one-item measure. In addition, the

conclusion by ,Pichten and Adler that the 200 students did

not dlffer in,~tially in anxiety 1evel lS slightly' unusual.

.. " .
Most research stud~es typically ,del~neate groups of, students

with varying levels of test anxiety .

•
. It may very weIl De

that the ll-item TAQ provided on,1y a very general lndication ,

of test anxiety level or .perhaps thfs scale represe'n ts an

•
 1.

25
ou tda ted me asu remen t dev ie e.
(
Janisse (1<973) investigate,d the evàluation f,ormat

p.referenées of university st~dents dlffering in test anxiety

levels. He hypothesized that since high test-anxious

persons perform weIl under evai'~ative cireumstanee,s relative

to 10w t;.est-a.nxious "indlviduals, the hi9l:t1y anxious may also

receive 1ess posltive relntorcement for belog in tradl tional

eva1uation situations. Fur ther, J anisse sugg·es ted that,

\

when g iven ~ c,hoif e, hig h te st-anxious s tu den ts may be more

,
l~ikely to ahoose a form of ' evaluation that diffe r 3' fr om the

tradi t ional q ne that has been no n-r ewa rding in the pasto

Low test-aoxlOUS students would be "more likely to choose th~

1 \

ttadi t lonal form of evalu ation which fias be~n rewà rd ing for

1
1 •
them.

Therefore, in this study students were al10wed a choice

,
of evalu ation forma t for mid-seme ste rand end-of-semeste r

eva1uations. Subje'cts were told to choose either a

.
traditional paper and penc l 1 ex am (TRAD group) tha.t

eonsisted of a comb:Lnation ,of multlple-choice, short-answer

and essay questions or: a somewhat le ss . tradl t ional-

alternative (ALT group). The ALT condltlon consisted either

of an oral exam wlth the 1nstructor or a' six to ten page

• type-written' essaye

Support' for the central hypothesis was apparent from

the resu1tsi that lS, the test anxie ty scores for the

t'subjects who chose the ALT format ~ere signiflcantly higher

,
than for those who chose the TRAD forma t. Janis se offe red a
1
few explanations for these findings. From a
 ----------.c' -
"
- J

26
di rec tion-of-a tten tion' ..
vie wpoin t, he !:iugg ested that
1l
sine e

time was less relevant in the ALT condition, this condition

.
was the prefe'rred choic-e for the h~g h test-anxious subjec ts.

The test-anxious students simplY . . . did not have to worry about

the "time cost'" of irrelevant responses in' the ALT

'condi t ion, whi le the restr ic'ted t ime in th e TRAD condi t ion

may have worked to the advantage of the low test-anxious

ind i v idu al.

Employing a learning tl;leory approach, Janisse suggested

that the choice of evaluation f0t'mat

. May be a reflection of

a learned preference for the low test-anxious subjects and a

•
learned avoidance response for the high test-anxious

s tu den ts. One might speculate that the highly anxious

persons avoided the TRAD format becaus,e of its non-rewarding

na ture h ence, the low-anxious individuals I}lay have

prefe rred the ,TRAD forma t bec ause of its fami lia ri ty and ~ts

J ,
rewardlng confequenc es. '

Ot:l;ler investig a tor s (e.g. , Dustin, 1971; Fulke rson &

Martin, '1981; & Marso, 19'70) have conc erned themselves ,w~ th

the effects' of examination frequency and other testing

procedures on test anxiety. Marso (1970) conducted a study

...,
Wl th a samp1e cons is tl;ng of 11.6 unlve r sity ~ tuden ts. Ma r so

wanted to dete rmine if more frequen t, gtaded unit

examinations followed by te st feedback would fac lli ta te

achievement and permit students to perform better cn a final-

, .

course exam. Students from four ,university classes

.
were

categor ized as' either .high test-anxious or 10w test-anxious

and were randomly

.
assigned to these testing procedures:
, .,,
 \
.
:

27

either three or six unit exams (test fq~quency category);

grading or non-grading of unit examsi and a "class feedback"

or ".no c1ass feedback" discuss ion group f?llowing exams.

Upon completion of
course, the
an a-nnounced and an
\
unannounced post-test were administered 'to the students.

The four-factor ana1ysis of covariance statistica1

procedure yie1ded a number of interesting flndings. Fust,

7

subjects exposed to test feedback fol1owing unit e~ams

achieved signifie antly hig her on the cour se final

exami,nation. In addition, sUbjec-ts taking six unit tests as

cO,mpared to three unit tests scored signif.icantly higher on

the unannounced post-test measure - thlS difference only

appr~ached significance on the announced final exam. It

appe~r"ed that test anxiety did not directly interact with

( the testing procedures employed ln the study. Neverthe1ess,

on the basis of questionnaire responseS, it was found th~~"

the highly anxious students did more strongly favor the more

frequent unit tests . .

1

An analogous s tudy (Fu1kerson & Martin, 1981)

investiga~ed the rela~ionship be tween examination fr equency

o

and (a) student eva1uation of instruct1rsi (b) studen t

performance; and (c) student test anxiety. One section. of

intrcrluctory psychology students was given an objective

25-item test every two ~eeks (experimer,ltal group) whi le a

second section was· given a.fl ob.jective 50-i tem test every

four weeks (-control group). Both sections were taught by

th e samè instruc tor and we re prèsen ted wi th. th e same

comprehensive final examina tian which serwed as the

 28
"
announced retention test. Near the 'end of the semeste-r the'
ah:itudes of the studen ts toward the instructor were
assessed
- t~rough a Course Evaluation Survey.· The test

arucie-ty l-evels of students were measured through the TAQ

(Mandle r & S.B. Sara son, 19 52)..

Th e examination da ta reveale d that the freq,uent,

shorter tests over smaller amountSr of material led to

significantly better test-!:?y-test performance thal) the less

fr equen t, 10 nger tests over la r"g er . amoun ts of, ma te rial. Th e

-'
.
numbe r of te sts' taken dur ing the seme~te r had 'no .effett on

performance on the announced fin"l examiriation. Students in

the experimental group (more frequent tests) also had a Îruch

hig her opinion of thei;r instruc tor than those in the contr 01
.-
grpup. The êest aruciety results demonstrated that while the
"-
control rgroup was signifieantly more arucious than the

experimental group, the absolute difference betweerf the mean

scores on this variable was not very la-rge. However, the
fact that t'te most anxious subjeets. in the ex pe r imen tal
J • r

group did sig nific an tly be tt-e r than the> most anxious'
.
sUbJeets ,,(.ln t h e contro1 group on the series of unit tests
'-
supports the notion that frequent testing -ma y aid the

pe rformanc e of hig,hly anx ious subjee ts.

A number of importan! suggestions can be derived from
this group of studi~s. It is obvious that tests represen t"

negati'Ve ex periences for hig hly te st-anxious lndiv iduaJ,'s ..

For instane e, when given a choie e; hig hly te st-anx ious

studen ts prefe r non-tradi t ional evaluation formats.

Permitting retesting seems to alleviate sorne of' the

 ------ .
29
test-related anxiety for students. Another implication lS
(
tha,t frequent testing may result in improved performance for

hig h test-anxious subjects. (

it, Without attempting to de-emphasize the value of these

,< stries; it should be no)ted 1:hat sorne of the researchers

si~ly sur,veyed student'preferences concern~ng possiblè test '.

formats and testing conditions. Of those studies that dld

~
investig ate exarnination pe rformanc e ln classroom

envirohments, many imposed evaluation formats that were of a

shor t dura tion. However, these investigations did provide

, .-
evidence of relevant testing variables to be considered in
studies of test anxiety. One final conunent is 'related to

the suggestion by Fulkerson and Martin (1981) of the

important function of the instructor, particularly where

(
tests and testing pr ocedures are involved. Apparen tly,

research into the influence of the instructional context and

instructor charâcteristics may represent yet another area

'.
where valu able informa trn pe rtain ing to examination

performance and test anx le Iy may be obtained.

Reactions to specifie test setti~gs. McKe acha.e,_ Pollie

r .,..
a nd- Speisman (1"955)- reported on a series of experiments

concerned wi th s tu den t pe rfor,ma nc e 0 n '~bj ec t ive-type A '

i
classr oom examinations. Even th-ough no direct measure of l'
o i
test anxiety was employed, the -authors assumed ·that a high l
, .
t
degree of anxiety is l'mobilized" by classroom tests and that
'

the adverse effects.of such a~iety are typically viewed \

...
t-hrough studen t performanc e. Th e general conclus io n fr om

.-,
• 1

1 0
30
,
-; these investigations was that ~ubjects instructed .' to "feel
.
free to rnake any comments about the test items" obtained
slgrlificantljl hlglier
.
test scores than .those
"
.instruct~d not

to make any comments. The researchers. pr'épàsed, further,

that the oppo~tunit!.y to write comm~nt3 ~Ilded in reducing an.d

transmitting the release of. test-related anxiety. Despite

these suggesti.ons, the results fr.om ..this study should be

--- viewed with sorne degree of caution s ince no oKe<;=tive

\ measurè of test
o
anxiety was, employed.
,

Closely parallel tQ the. McK>eachie et al. r~search was

a study perforrned by Stnitp and RocKett (195~). In this

investigation 217 university studen ts 'responded to a scale

.0

. ig ned to me asu re a tt i'-tudes and fee'li~gs of anxie, ty J towa rd

qes

testing situations (S.B. Sarason et' al, 1952). The authors

docwnen ted a· s 19 nif ic an t by Instructions

in'teraction: with instructions not in tended °to r educ e

\
anxiety the low-anxiou~ subj~cts ~ere somewhat superior' to
th e
) "

hig h-anx.ious- subj ec ts,

.
but this findfng was r'eversed
."
with instructions sug~esting that comments be'" freely made.
The'trend was further influenced by instructions requesting. .
subjec ts to.-- "pIe ase . make conunen ts". Even the
'. ~ r ~
insttuctions to wi~te èomments"improved the pe rformanc e of
highly anxious students, the perfor,mançe of students 10w in

anxie ty was h' which places sorne limitations on the

of sucn an o instructionai v àr iab)..e in-
classroom situations.

A reè;ent study (Gal,assi et, al" 1~81) of~ the behavior 11

and feelings of 231 uni'Versity stùden es dur ing "an actual

) t,
 1
1 31

course examination 1;?rovided evidence of the negatlv_e e"ffects

of anxiety on testing behavior. -"Th e foc us of this

lnvestigation was p.r, ima'rily on th e r ole of s tu den t,1 s

internaI dialogues or cOgnitions durlng a test. With regard

to in ternal dialogue~ low test-anxious, subjects had

f
significantly. more positive and fewer negative thougp.ts than

hlgh test-anxious subjects. The highly anxious students had

frequent thoughts about escaplng from the testing situation

- th-ey also interpreted the testing experience in such a

way as to predlct their own fallure and poor performance.

Apparen tly, te sts we re le ss negative and less potent

experiences for the low-anxious subjects as c:OJlIP'âred with

th e hig h-anx ious subjec ts •

. S"\:udies illustratin-g dl~ect manlpulations of variables

(
during ongoing examina tions have aiso appeareà in the
)

Iiterature on test anxiety. DeffENlbacher and Deitz (1978)

repor teù on a projec t investig a ting r"eact io ns to te.sting in'

I93..1JJ11:versity students. Subjects were admiJ:llstered both

\
the TAS (I. Sarason, 1972) and ~he Worry-Emotionality Scale

(Lieb~ rt & Mor r is, 1967). The Worry-Emotionality Scale was

attached to the last page of the exams and students

comple ted It-- according té the feelings evoked by the exam.

Three course ~xaminations we re given, containing 50

mul t ip le-choie e items e ach . . In addition, sUbjects' were

rando~.ly exposed to· the following exam fotmats over the

three exams: the normal ~ format, which contained the

usual instructions for a .l1l1ltiple-choice test; and the

relaxa tion e?,(am forma t which was id en tic al to the norma,l

~

~,
r
-------

32

e~am except that a sèries of relaxation instruc·tions were

in se rted.

Apparently, the relaxation ~nstructions were relatively

ineffective in reducing the stressfùl effects of the

examination situation for the highly anxious; only on the

second exam did the relq,xation manipulatlon reduc~ ~he worr'l

of the hig hly anxious.
..
Nevertheless, the hig hly

test-arus:ious subjects did perform less well and did report

more wor ry alld. emotionali ty than the low test-anxious gr ~Upe

" .
This finding in itself is commendable in that it served to
~ .
extend typical laboratory results to naturalistic settings,
c

thereby providing further support- for the external validity

of the TAS. Furthermo+e, the implicat~on may be that the

evaluative characteristics of the testing situation were

slmply too powerful to be overcorne by a single manipul·ation

of examinat.i(pn format. One might . assume that a number of

other possible instrucdonal variables operate during course

\
" ;> - \
examlnat~ons
• '. •
an d f u ture .
~nvest~gatlons
.. . ht
mlg .b ene f 1t
. by

regarding the effects of these other factors ,in the'

instructional .context (e'.g., the'jmpa6t and role of the

instructor) .

Paul and Er iksen (1964) investigated the effect .of

anxiety upon 'performance on "real· life" examinations. Th~

sUbje,cts, 100 undergraduate females, varied on aruèiety level

as measured by the TAQ (Mandler & S.B. Sarason, 1952) and on

scholastic abiJ:ity as assessed by the SCAT., Studen:ts ~rote.
- ..
a ~~guiar 'coutse examination .the morning of the bxpèrimen t~l

day.' (':rhe investigator s co~red this exam to represen t a

"""

"
 1 f

..
33

typical anxiety-provoking exam and they z:eferred to. lt as

1
i
the "anxious exam" '. ) S tuden ts wére then seen in srnalb,

informaI gtoups and were adrninlstered a'n experimental eX,am

over 'the sarne content that had been covered' by the morning
,,-
exam. This E;!xpe.r imen tal ex am ( r~.S:#ed to as the
...
"non-anxious exam") was pre,ceded by instructions designed tq

minimize' anxiety (e.g., stuqents were ,tald that the exam

would not'coun.t in any way toward their course grades). The "

examiners (gr,adu ate s tuden ts) we re insttuc ted ta be ,"wa rm,

4

. permissive and understanding" and to make the subjects feel

as relaxed and non-anxiaus as possible.

For the sample as a whole,' the rela tionship be tweén

amc ie ty level and pe rformanc e on the "anxious" gnd

"non-anxious" exams was not significant.· Hewever, upen

examining the 70% of the sample which comprised the proad

middle range of, scholastic abil~ty, the investigators

discovered a significànt relationship 'between TAQ measures

and differential exam performa.nce . . Therefore, i.n the middle

"

group of scholaStic ability, those subjects above the median

,
on the TAQ (h~gh test-anxiaus) obtained as good> dr ,better
\ ,
scores· on the experimental {"n0n-aru/:ious"i exam relative te

the . . . regular exam. Those subjects below the median on the

TAQ (low test-anxious) showed paorer -performance on the

experimental exam. This' study point~d to the necessary ,

1
consideration of indlvidual differences in ability level in J
- '1
j
investigations of test a.nxiE:ty. The suggestion is that the j,
re-la,tionship
1

classr oom tests may

bet~en" test anxiety

no t follow an al together
and pe rfor manc e

cle ax-c ut and

on
i
~
t
1 "?

.
1
--:-~~~~~~~~~~~ - - - - ---------

------_._-----.,-;

34

direc t patte rno

Test anxiety and instructional variabl'es. McKe achie

(ï951) has suggested that th e s tu den t 1 S anxie ty ;is

heightened or reduced by the instructor's teaching behavior.

He noted'that the control of anxiety, is easiest if students

are .~ a"h~ghly structured situation where th'ey I<now exact1y

what they rust do. McKeachie described the instructor as

1 ~

,tpe "gaté'keeper, the one who' can determine.

",
'Whether or hO t

the student passes" (po 153) 0 The implication i5 that the

stud,ent's -'dependence upon the instructor i5 great. As well,

"the me th~ '9[ lnstruc tion employ.ed by th e instiuctor

probably' plays a major role ln the stud,en't'·s

, per,formance on,
,

: '
acadernic tasks and probably greatly infl,uéncés the student's
1
\
anxie'ty level.

ResearchellS throughout t-he .years hav.e investigated the

rela tionship be tween instruç tionaL var i-ables and tes..t

anxiety. An early study by H'oCo ,Smith (1955) contrasted the '"

. effects of a tearn cla~srbotn structure 'versus a l'ecture

.',
classroom format~ The subjects, 96 students in two general l
psychology. classes, respond~d to a series of achlevernen t

tests, 'a' course satisfaction scale, an instructor ratidg

sqaJ:è and an, anxiety sc ale (Spence & Taylor, 1951) .

Students in the' te,am 'class . were individIJa11y matched ôn

,. achievernen t and attitude wit:.h studen ts in the le'cture g:r oup.

, ,À 1
.
,
In the te am class, studen ts we re orga'b~d into f~ve
J
subgroups and the emphasis 'was on' group projec~s, group

decisions and a group incen tive. The other 48 students were

'",
 3,5

,exposed to a tradltional lecture-d,lscussion class with

, individual grades as the lincentive. Contrary to prediction,

the anxious ----

students in the team class were somewhat more

at 'sfied and made larger achievemen t gains. Even though

lno e of the differ.ences was signlflcant,

that there was no evldence

less sa tis f.i.ed or le 5S pr crluc tive as

that t.he anxious
the authors claimed

a r esul t
5tudents were

of be ing in a

team situation.

A se ries of la te r s tudie s examined th e

-
rela tlonshlp
.
~et~en classroom structure and student. anxieq., St.anton's

(1974) large-scale effort with 1047 Australian boys a,nd

9 ir ls pr o~lded r~sul.t.s qui te - st.rongly indlc ating tha t

. Chlld ren in conve1 tio nal classr ooms displayed lowe r levels
i

of tes.t.'anxiety t.ran d,id chïldren t.aught.ln open classrooms.

t Stanton concluded\that conventional classrooms are familiar

and tend to be reass~ring and ~nx,iety-reducing while the

le5s structured open classrooms are more disturbing to

chlldren.' It 1S worth noting that these results may weil be

1
\feve r sed w i th more ma tu re s tu den ts, as was examined fu r th er

in a study (Peterson, 1979) to be discussed later.

Dowaliby and Schumer (1973) ex_amined the interaction

between •
two modes o~ college classroom Instruct.ion and

manifest anxiety as measured by the Taylor Manlfest. Anxiety

Scale (Taylor, 1953). The 69 unlversit.y Juniors serving as

subjects were enrolled in two separate sections of a co~rse .'

and were assigned, according to their course schedules, to

J

one of two téac=hlng met.hods. The "teacher-cent.erea" section

fol.lowe'd a lecture Iformat and the instructor discouraged

 36
0:
1
fsubject-initiated respo~ses. The ,"student-centered" ~ode

followed a discus~ion format and subject-initiated responses

were strongly encouraged by the instructor.

The results demonstrated that the interaction between

anxiety and the 'two modes of instruction was

1
disordlnal: the

"student-centered" mode resulted in higher scores on the

criterion measur'es (course examinations) than did the

/
"teacher-centered" mode for those'students low in manifest

anxi~ty. Conversely, the "teacher-centered" mode resulted

,
in higher scores on the criterion rneasures than did the

" s tudent-centered" mode for those studel1ts high in manifest

.
Thus, the highly structured, "te ach er-c en te red"
"

approach al.ded the perf,?rmance of hlgh-arud.ous students

r while
~
,_~he less structured, "s tu den t-c en te red" appr oach

resulted in superior exam performance for low-anxious

students. The findings' by Dowallby and Schumer suggest that

the rÈüative merits of dl ffe ren t instruc tional techniques

mi-g ht be strengthened by the inclus ion of speciflG

indiv idual diffe rence var iables such as test anxie ty.,

Future research, effor ts might also benef it by regarding

,1

individual studen t pe rcept ions., of th e, instructional

)

situation.
Peterson (1977) attempted ta extend the findings of
1
Dowaliby and Schurne r qy isolating the effects of struc tu re

and participa tian on s tuden t abi li ty and anx ie ty. An

experienced social studies teacher taught a 2-week unit ta

four cla sses of nin th grade . Situ den ts accordlng to four < •
i
instruc t ional treatmen
, ts that varied ln the amoun't of
,.
\

"

1. '

'.
 37

structure and· student pa-rtI~ipation. The treatments that

re sulted we re: hig h structure/high particlpat~Onj hlgh

s tructu re/low partie ipa tion; low struc tu re/low

pa rtic lpa tion; and low structure/hig h part~cipation.~

1 ,
Te acher beh av ior was oôserved during the s tudy to"

demonstra 'te the accuracy of treatmen t implernen ta t ion.

AnXle ty was assessed through the Chi'ldren's Manife st Anx ie ty "

Scale (CaStaneda et al, 1956). and through the State-Trait-

Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger et al, 197P).

Peterson discove~ed. a number of S igni:'ficant

interactions among anxle ty, ability and the instru tional

treatmen ts. One general conclus ion was that the effects of
, ,
anxiety depeod on how weIl the high-anxious student is able

to meet th~ informa t ion-pr ocess ing dernands of· the s leU ation.
{
The more speciflC findings indlcated that students who were

e ~ ther hig h, or low on bo th anxie ty and abi li ty performed

rnost poorly in the low structure/low pa rtlcipa tion' . . ,

t:reatmen t. In ex:plaining these resul ts, pe te rson suggested.

that the high anxiety/high ability students were probably

frustrated by the lack of cues in the low structure/low

partie ipa tion class but we re able to rneet th e dema nds of th e .

other three lnstructiollal ~reatments. "The low anx'iety/low

ability students also seemed to benefit by havlng demands

placed ?n them through teacher structuring, a cO,ndition

unavai lable in the low s tructure/lciw p artic lpa tio n class.

On th e 0 ther hand, students who were high on one of

these variables and lo~ on ~he other performed best with the

low structure/low" participation treatmen t. Pete rson ,

,
t
~

i
 38

indièated that:
.. the high anxiety/low abtlity students do
better 'ln classes ln which the teacher does not
place 'j frustrating demands on them throu'gh
structuring and ln which they are able to remain
inconspic uous (1977, p. 787).

Apparently, these set of conditions were available in the

lo,w structure/low partlcipation class. Th'e low anxiety/high

ability students did not seem to need the instructor s ince

, , •
th ey we re qui té capable of 1é'arning on their own.

P~terson. (1.979) ~ttempted to repllcate these findings

... ~ 0.1

with a sample of four classes of undergraduates ln a 5-week

educational psycho1ogy cou·rse. The low structure/low

participation treatment was again most important wlth these

students; however, the results werè' essential1y the opposite

of those repèrted for ninth grade students. Thus, the low

\
structure/low participation treatment was the best treatment

for students who were either hlgh, or low, on bo th anx ie ty

and a~ility. Conversely, this treatment was the worst for

stu,dents high on the abihty variable and,.,low on anxiety, or

vice versa~ Peterson suggested that, in this sample, the

high ability/high a~iety students were probably aid~d by

knowing 'what was expected, of them while the low ability/hlgh

.
anxi:ety students mi-;Jht have been frustrated because they

~ssum,ed they would be unable to do what the instructor

suggested.

The many diverse. findings' f.t:om'these studies,

particlllarly those repQrted by Peterson, imply that the

even ts occurr ing ln the instructional setting represeI) t a

complex process. The indication lS that the interaction

 39

between test anx ie ty, c1assr oom pe rformanc e and

instructiona1 me thods also represen ts a complic ated

rela tionship. C1early, any r igorius investig a tlon of

instructiona1 variables and test arunety should tak'e into

,
'account student ability and other posslble individual

S tuden t characte r is tics.

Test Anxiety and Academic Performance

It is generally assumed that whert indlviduals become

aroused, thelr performance on a t?sk changes (Norman, 1976).

Initially, inc re ase s ln arousal resu1t in improved

performance but further increas1s ln arousal interfere with

eff ic ien t pe rformance. Tl:lls rela tionsh Ip is thoug ht to form

a'n Inverted U function and. has been named the Yerkes-!):)dson

(
law after Its discoverers (Yerkes, & Dodson, 1908). The

foLlowing disc uss ion examines the, in te raction be tween a

specIfic form of arousal (test a~l)dety) and ac ademic

pe rformanc e, witb ac ademic pe rformanc e typic ally

investigated through intellectual and aptitude measures. A

dlScussion of this nature seems appropriate, given that many

of ,the studie s r evie wed thus fa r have indIC ated tha t, a

~

consideration of indlvldual student ability in test anxiety

research is necessary.

In an Investigation of this process, Grooms and Endler

(1960) collected' aptitude, anxiety and academic achievement

measures on 91 male university students. The subJects were

trichotomized iuto ,high anxious (HA), middle anXIOUS (MA),

and low anxious (LA) groups on the basis of their TAQ scores

,,-' 1
 •
,' --'

40

(S.B. Sarason & Mandler, 1952). Th e au thor s docLDnen ted a

:'
significant negative correlation between test anxiety scores

and the measure of aptitude (the Penn State Aptitude Exam)

9sed in the study. No direct, significant relationship was

found between test anxiety and 1 ac ademic achievemen t.

Neve r th ele ss , the author s suggested th a t te s ~ a nx i e ty

functioned as a "modifier variable" \

that added ta the

prediction' of actual grade averages (academic achievement)

from aptitude test scores. Alpert ,and Haber (1960) also

investigated the effect of indlvidual differences ln test

anxiety on academic performance. They discovered that the

AAT, a specl f ic me asu re of te st anxie ty, a dded _s ignl f ic antly

ta the prediction of academic performance scores (GPA's).

• Spielberge~ (1966) reported on a series of studies that

he \ I1d ,his colleagues performed to investigate tne influence

-of anx ie ty on le arning and ac ad~mic achievemen t. In one of

these studies, the corrélation b~tween measures of aruClety

and in telligenc e was found ta be essen tlally ze ra for a

large sample, of males and females. Howeve r, a more de tai led

examination of the data for male subjects revealed a small

negative correlation between these variables in a student,

sample of 10w average in te1lec tu al abi li ty. , 'The results

from an analogous investigation illustrated that students in

the broad middle range of academic aptitude with high

anxiety experienced performance decrements ,as carnpared ta

students with 19w anxiety. Spielberger concluded t~at high

anx ie ty had no apparen t effec t on th e pe rformanc e of ~ow

ability studeI)ts, whose grades were generally 10w, but

• •

41

tended to faci l i ta te the performance of high ability

studen ts. The implic ation is that test anxie ty does no t'

appear to affec t aIL college and university students

equally. As well, test anXiety inay. represent, but one

variable affecting grades, which su~gests that factors such

as scholastic ability and past academic performance should

not be overlooked in this type of research (GalasSl et al,

1981) .

Boor (1972) examiin,ed the rela tionshlp be tween academic

performance and measures of, test anxiety when intelligence

was taken lnto account. None of' the test anxiety measures

(TAS, AAT+, AAT-) was s,ignificantly rjlated to performance

when the variance attributable to .intelligence was partialed

out or when the subjects were divide"d into groups of

(
,relatively equivalent inte11ectual levels. The investigator
•
concluded that:

•.. the relation.ship in the data between test

anxie ty and examination p'e rformance c an be.
accounted for most parsimoniously by a common
rela tionshlp of these variable s to in tell ig enc~.
(Boor, 1972, p. 172).

Daniels and Hewitt (1978) 'studied classrCXJm-examination

pe rformanc e over the c our se of an en tire semester in 48

~nlversity

TAQ (Sarason
students (27 femalé,

& Gordon, 1953).

21 male)

There
who we re gi yen the

was· a strong' main

~ l
î --

1
effect of anxiety which was higbly consistent across a .1,

variety of conditions: the results were the same when 1

intelligence was, held, constant. regardless àf th.e type of
1
exam question, and regardless of the sex of the subject.

According to Daniels and Hewltt, tpe finding of major

~
 42

interest was the "e.xtremely strong relationship" between

test anx~ety scores and course performance scores, even when

tJ
intelligence was partialed out.

, Boor (1980) proposed that the "extremely strong

relationship" between test arudety and exam performance

repor ted . by Oaniels and Hewi t t may have been due ta a

"methodological artifact" of the experirrœntal procedure

rather than an actual relat.ionship between the variables.

In ord·er to invest,ig a te this po ~s ibï l i ty, Boor adminis te red

the TAS. to sorne subjec ts inunedia tely afte r a cour se exam.

(the pr ocedure ,used by paniels and Hewitt) and lalso

administered the test anxiety measure ta' other subjects

during a regular class period (the procedure used by other

investigators). The sample was composed of 90 students ih

~ c
an introductory
)
psychology' university course. l\s predic ted, ,
AI

the course exam scores were .significantly related tÇ) test

'anxiety for subjects given the TAS inunediately after a , -'

c9urse exam

the TAS at a time other

.
but not significan1;ly
, related .for

than the course exam.

those given
~

In .,adqî,.t~ol'l,

the scores were not signifi~antly related for

. .'Ol!p
e i Eh e r . 9 i

of subjects when the conunon varian~e attributable to

in telligence was partialed out.

Boor concluded that the strong relationsh'iJ .reported ~y

Daniels and Hewitt between test anxiety and course ex am

scores •••
,
... may have resulted pt; le ast 1.n part from the
student's test anxiety levels being altered dùe to
their having just completed an exam and from their
response to demand characteristics inherent in the
.- experimental procedure (1980, p. 179).

(
 - ~-~--~--- ---li

l
43
!1
. 1
Consequen tly, Boor concluded that the findings by Daniels {
(
and ~ewitt might best be viewed with G:aution., Never;theless-,

(and in aIL fairness to Daniels and ,Bewi t t); i t mus t be

noted tl)at the s imi.la rly ,robust. f indlngs b Y Boo r ~ (19 72 ;

1'980) of no, rela \:.ionship be tween ee'st ,anxiety', and

performance scores are at odds wlth a series of' earli"er

results documented in the area. Another notable point i3

that none of these researchers cons'idered the trait-state

anxïe ty di s tinct io n, a no.tion which may have sorne

applicability 'to these p.;lr'ticular investigations.

, r sy
De spi te 'the ïncono1.us iveness and unresolved eontr ove

.
regarding the results from thèse studies of test' anxiety a}1d

academic performance, the gen,erai findlngs point t,o a series

of implications. Ga+assi et al. (1981) have proposed tha-t

we rnove beyond the "patient uniformity" myth (Kiesler-, 1966)

which assumes that all test-anxious individuals perform

poorly~ Cle arly, hj.g h

.
t:e st anJ:' ie ty ,d oes deb i li ta te many
-
individuals, but this relationship !"ay no-t be alt?gether

s traig h~forwa'rd. investiga tüons ", should ,COriS ider

possible contributing factors to academic performance; for

,
,/ ,,. ()

example 1 Boor (198 0) claimed~' that many variables probahly

affect this process, including test -anxie ty, in telligence

, f
....
(ability) , motivation, and ,:;tudy habi ts. Simi la rly,
't)

Deffenbach er et al. (1981)' sugg"ested that factor s s~ch as

study and problein-solving skills must be 'examinéd for 'a

,
compreh ens ive
-
understanding of- , "
anx~ety-per
f ormance
' Iè.
rela tionships. The indication'" is that. instructional.
,,
, '

charac'te ristics and . the i instructional settirig i t self

" ,
"
 \ 1

44

p,robably great1y influence student's. academic pe~formance

and s tu den t ' s 'test anxie ty 1evels. Furthermoce, an

investigation of the contribution of specifie student
- l

characteristics (such as study habits) to the test anxiety

1

rela tionship would be wa rrflnted. A, presen ta tion 'of this

re search appear s in the pr oceeding sec tiqn of th e pr epen t

, -.
rev iew. .'

DescriQtive Stud~es
.-
·These investig a tions, pr ima riJy cor cela tiona1 in Q

nature, examine th~ extent to which certain p«:rsonality and

study skill factors media te -'the test anxiety-performance

re1a tionship.
t,

Test anxiety and Eer'SOnality. Even though studies of

thè pe r senali ty ch aracte ris tic s of , individuals 'with

-differing . levels of test· anxiety are sçarce, sOf!le have ,

t:J appeared -throughout the year~. Butterfie~d (1964) <?~~e,rned o~/
a number of factor s: 10c us-of-.contr 01,

1 frus tr«tion re actions, te st anxie:ty, and achievemen t

attitudes. For ty-seven °undergraduate psychology studen ts

r~sponded tQ,i. inven tor i~s. assess ing these variables. Of

,
,
in te rest are the resu1ts regarding te!;lt arudety .and

( lC1C us-of -c ontrol. , 'Fest "anxiety was assessed. through

facilitati~g and debilitating test anxiety i·tems (Alpert &.

, <

Haber, 1960); faci~itative responses were assumed te

repr esen t adapt ive re actions under stress fuI situations

whereas debi"litative' rèsponses we r~ viewed as ma1adaptive.

,.
...
~
1

Butte rfield
.def 1ned locus-of-control in th e following
45

manner:

A pe rson lS said fa have an 1n te rnal

10cus-of-coQ.tJ:_ol if he fe!,!ls that the
reinforcements Wh1Ch he r,eceives occur pr imarily
because of his own purposeful behavior. A person
i5 said ta have an external locus-of-control if he
fee1s that the reinforcements he receives occur
primarily because of forces beyond h1s control (p.
355) ••

In this 5tudy, Butterfie1d found that debilitating

anxiety-reaction scores increased and facilitating anxiety

reac tians decreased as locus-of-control bec ame more

i
~te rnal. Therefore, the more internal an ind~vidual's

locus-of,-control was, the more likely rhe a~ie ty response

." was ta be a facilitative one. convers~ly, the less control

an individual felt over the en'fi; onmen t" the more

( debi li tating was -th e anxie ty respoose to s tressful

",-' situations.
, ( ,

Lin and McKe achie (1971) examined sex di ffe renc es in

perso,nality correlates of test anxiety arnong four S'amples of

studen ts in three odifferent university course~_ No

signif'icant sex differences appeared betw'een the student

responses on the measures used in the study: the Cali,tornia

6
Psyeholog ie al lnven tory, S.ixteen Pe r sonali ty Factor

Questionnaire, and the Alpert-Haber Aehievement AqX.iety

Test. Howev~r~ sorne notable patterns, emerged amo~g the.

, 1)

achievemen t anxie ty and perso nali ty variables. Subj ects of 1

'" 1
bath sexes withchigh debilitating test anxie'ty tended ta be j
"" , 1 1
j
low' in "aehievement potential,. intellectual e f f ic i e-rrby and
• p!:lych,olog ie al-minde~ness n ( p. The res~arche'rs
1
\
. coneluded that the high debilitating-anxiety
520) •

sUbjects were

c ,
'1
 1

. .,

46

poor ~n both intellectual and soclal competence.

In , a similar examination of test anxiety, mood and

performance (Wittmaier, 1974) , 300 unlversity students

responded to an achievement anxiety test and mood ad.jective

/
ch ecikl'i s't. Wittmai'er~discovered that subjeets W'ith igh
-, debilitating anxiet~ sc'ores r~ported feeling "more atig~_

skeptical, and aggressive and lëss surgent ela ted than

those with high facilitating anxiety s res" (p. 669).

Lau (1977) also investigated personality eorrelates ~of

test anxiety in a :;;ample of 389 university studen ts.

Subjeé ts were adminis te red a qu estio nnaire eneompass ing the /"

debilitating seale of the Alpert and Hal)e r (1960)

Achievement Anxiety Test; Levenson' s (1~J2) in ternality //

measure; Rosenberg's (1965) self-estee'm scale; afld the /

• Hidden FfuJes Test, a commo~" measure of field indepen<;lenc~/."// .

-(c.f. Wit)<in et al, 1962). In addition, two questions were

formula ted concerning. subj'ects' willingness '.to see~, help and

the expected benefit frem hel:p-seeking. The major results

demonstrated that test anxiety was associated' with low

, . in ternal loc us-af-contr 01, low self-esteem and 10w

f ie~d-independene-e. Te'st anx ie ty wa s als,o po,sit ively

re·lated to the tendenëy to seek help. In summa riz i'ng t~e

f indings, Lau suggested that test anxie ty may no t

. ""
test-specifie,- bu~ ntay represent' a more seneral per~naclity
,

, ,
and cog~itive characteristic.

Ta k.e n tog e ~h e r , th e r e su 1 t s from these p~rsonali ty

stuqies implt" 1:hat the individual charaete°ristics qf. the

be
.
considered when classroom invèstigati~ns
, '

..
, .
t "
: J.. " ,
 _________________________ ~H~ __________ ~ _______________

47
. ~

between instructional variables ~nd test anx ie t:y are

, .
..
perf°ted.
<trea n tnat
At tpe presen t time ,

a host of specifie
research is lack ing in this-

pe r sc nali.ty variables have

'

been found tio be rela téd to test anx i~ ty, but these

personality cpnstructs are not Q,lways elearly deflned nor

are they', easily inte.rpretable,. The r ela t 1'Ve contr ib ut ior.!

\ ·and lnfluenee of th ese ' eleme'n ts to "the pe-rsonali ty makeup

, .
and behav,ior of the te~t-anxious or non-t~st-ànxiou:> student

have not been- suffieiently documented to date. ~

Test anxiety , and s'tudy habits. Investigations of the

s ttidy.

univirsity
habi,ts' and
,
s tu den ts repr e sen t
.
pre-examination behavior

a rela ted a rea "of

of college

inquiry.
and

Martin and Meyers (1974)

. exarnined the .relationship ,between

anx ie ty rnanife st pr ior to an ~*àm and a· spee if ie . stu dy sk i 11

, '

var iable:' the quanti ty of st\l'dy for tha t ' exa'mina tian. On 12,

- hundred female undergraduates we re adminis te tad the Trait

Anxiety lnven tory (Spie~be rger et al, 1970) followed by p

5

br ief form of the State Anxie ty lnven ~ory (0 1 Nei l et al,

\ 1,969) . Subjec,ts we re ,asked to respond' ,ta the

T.r:iit Anx,iety, Inventory in terms \ of how they, generally felt '

l tems on the

apd to respond ta the items on the State Anxiety ~lnventory

in te rms of hQw they felt about their upeoming

. exam.
..
SUbj.cts· w•. re 01s0 Instructed ta r espand l ta the Sta te
Anxie ty lnven tory on each day of th e fpur remaining days

p,r ior te;; the exam and to record the amount of tirne they

~
"
studied for th e'ir exam each day.

Su rpr is irig ly, the investig a tor s fourtd tha't both state
~ ','

, Î

j
, , l,
 48

'and trait, anxiety were signific~ntly cc;>rrelated, in a

positive direction, w~th quantityof study prior to the'

~xam. J:n addition, state anxiety correlated negative1y with

performance. In an attempt to âccoun t 'for these

contra dic tory findings be tween state anxie ty and

1.'
performance, Martin and Meyers ,(1974) claimed that: ..
The only explanat~on that se'effis to f~t the data lS
that state anxiety man~fest during the preparation
period was correlated positively with state
anxiety manifest at the time of performance" which
in turn was re1ated negatlvely to performance '(p.
220) •

This exploratory study may have offered sorne intriguing

-data, but the general findings are diff~cu1t to 'interpret.

Furthermore, the fact that the investigation suffere-d from .,

sorne methodological, inadequacies (e.g., lack of procedural

con:rOl! places some Limitations on the reliability of ,the

resultsl_

In a more inclus ive investigation, Ùesiderato and

r •

Koskinen (1969) samp1ed fr.eshman opinion regardin(j acadernic

achievernent,
,
study habits,
q
and achievernent anxiety. 'GThe 94

female subjects resp<Dnded to the Achievement Anxlety Test

(AAT) (Alpert &'Haber, 1960) and a Survey of Study Habits

and Attitudes measure- (SSHA) (Brown & Holtzman, 1956) .

Women with high facllitating anxiety (AAT+) received b'ètter

grades than women with hlgh debilitating anxiety (AAT-) •

Subjects wi th hig h debi l i ta ting scores also showed poore r

study habits while those' with high faci'litating anxiety

r,eported better study habits. ,The gr;ade-point average (GPA)

of women w i th good study hab i ts (hig'h SSHA) wa's hig her than

that of women with poor study habits (low SSHA) .

 49
0

Allen, Lerner and Hinrichsen (1972) also emphasized GPA

(
results in their anal.ys is of acàdemic aptitude,
. test ~

anxiety, and sel f-r epor.t da ta from l 22 u no e rg r a du a te s . They

obse rved that "hig h schoo1 standing" functioned as the bes t

predictor of GPA, but the nurnber of days subjects reported

•
studying a,nd TAS scores also' added , S ignificantly to the
.
prediction. In addition,:higher "trait anxiety (as rneasured

by the AAT fnd TAS) was associa'ted wi~h J.ower GPA, while

facilitating anxiety "(~AT+) and "m'ore days \spent studying"

i
were related to higher grades.

'Wittmaier (1972) examiI}ed the associa tion be tween

facilitating (AAT+) and debilitating (AAT-) te-st anxiety and

s~~dy
t'! '
habi ts. He suggested that a facilitating response to
.
test arpciety would be viewed in the development of effective
,'
study habits b'y students. A 'pool of 52 subjects was

selected' for the study a<;Fording to scores on the MT

(Alpert & Haber, 19(0). Subjects also completed the Survey

of Study Habits and Attitudes (SSHA) (Brown & Holtzman,

1956) . The data clearly indicated that anxious ,students )

1

(higq, AAT- scores) were likely to have less effective stU?y

,
habits and were more likely to delay ac-ad.emic tasks. than

thO'ae ,showing facilit.atir.lg anxiety. Wittmaier coocluded

that the poorer performance of test-anxious students was

partia.lly attr ibutable to ineffective pr e-exami na tio n

behavior.

In an effor t to pr ovide a cIe are r under standing of th E!'

relationship between test anxiety, study skills and academic

pe rformance, K irkland and Holla ndswor th (1979) collected

"
 _________________ ~"',""l

50

undergradu'ate student responses on a series of measures.

Alpert & Haber's (1960) AAT, Sa~rason's (1972) TAS and

General Arixiety Scale (GAS), and Br own' s (1975) Effective

Study Test (EST) were administered to the 305 particlpants

dtiring a ' one hour class ,pericd. The results demonstrated

that impaired academic performance was significantly relatea'

bo th to hig h 1eyel s of. deb~ ta t'ive achievemen t ,aruue ty and

low leve1s of fa'cilitative. aChiev,ement anxiety -:- lt was

,
also associated with de~icits in test-taking skills (q

similar finding to that offered 'by Wittmaier (1972». The

,.
.
\
TAS, a me asu re of s ituation-spec 1 fic t~st anx ie ty, ~'and th e

EST study skills test were also signlflcantly related to the

'\
studen ts: GPA' s.

Recently, Culler and Hola-han' (1980) examined the

,
potential role of dlfferèntial' study-related behaviors .on

the relationship of test anxiety to acadernic perfor:mance.

First semester uIilversity stud,en ts responded to the TAS

(Sarason et al, 1968) and completed the 50-item Study Habits

sc ale of th e SSHA (Br own & Hol tzman, 1967). Th e 65 hig h

tes't':"anxious and 31 low test-anxious subjects also completed

a questionnaire designed by the lnvestigator s to ôbtain

lnforma tian on s tudy:':r~la t~d behavior s such as th e "numbe r

of hours spent studying per week." GPA's obtained

for each subject.

-

The discovery of a significant decremen t in GPA

associated with increasing levels of test anxiety replicated

ear1y work in., the area (e.g., A11eFl et al: 1972; Desidetato

& Koskinen, 1969; Kirklapd & Hollandsworth, 1979). Another

·"fI

intere'sfing finding was that of

o .
a sig ni f.ic an t , dif
'
fe renc e in
51'

study skill level (StudyHabits scale)'1 with the'high

test-anxious students demonstrating reduced study skills.

However, the use of significantly more study time by the

'{üg h te st-anx ious studen ts was su rpr is ing, s ince i t was in

contr~o the th ei r repor ted s tu dy compe tenc ie s. Th e

~tion is' th~t high test-anxious students may att;mpt to

compensate for their lower study competence by increasing

t'heir to tal s tudy time.

It would appear that the Culle rand Holahan' resLi1ts and

other s,imilar findings question qur.rent notions 1;hat the

test-anxious indlvl'dual ' s prob1em i5 the retr ieval or use of

we1l-known information in the testing. situation. The study

"
skill d~fference found between high and low test-anxious
(
studen ts and the rela t~onship of 5 tudy habi ts to GPA,

ind~cate there may be an essential difference bet.....een these

two groups in how. familiar they are with the test 'material.

An impor ta?t underly ing variable may be how s tudy time lS

used ra ther than the amount of time an lndividual stUdlèsi

this factor wou1d évident1y l.nfluence student familiarity

with test ~tems, as weil. Kirk1and and Hol1andsworth (1979)

have suggested, further, that the question remains as to

whether anxiety interferes with effective test-taking or

whether the 1ack of effective skills (e.g., study habits)

resu1ts in the test anxiety. Culler and Ho1ahan wou1d c1aim

that the anxiety responses in the testing sltuation are a

product of both elevated ,anxiety level and the knowledge

that there has not been adequate nor effective preparatlon

1.
 --,-------,---------.',

52
for ,the test. Despite the rnany explanations and
interpr~tations to be founq' in the literature on this topic,

the mechanisms underlying the relationship between test

~

anxiety and study habits are not fully understaod as of--yet . .;cp"-

An Individua1 Diffèrence Perspective

Sarason (1980) has suggested that there exist marked

individual') differences in reactions ta evaluative

situations:" Sarason and Stoops (1978) pointed' to the

important notion of inâividua1 differences in "wor-rying, a

cogni tive re sponse characte ris tic of test-anxious

individuals. Sarason. and Stoops and others (e.g., Morris et

al (1981)) also c1aimed that there is a need for an

interactiona1 Vl.ew to test anxiety research, a view which

.'
regards test aoxiety as an l.ndividual diffe rence variable
o
and, w~ich views behavior as the product of an interaction
;

between the inctividua1/person and the situation.

One might presume that these person, and s itua~ion

variables operate ln college enVlronments as weil. In fact,

o
research on te aching and le arning has found this to be th e
,
case. Consequen tly, it might be useful to view the

interaction between individua1 characte ristics of studen ts

.
(persan,variables) and instructiona1 elements, including the

instructor (situation variables) . Th e f indings fr om th e

o li te ra ture reviewed above have indic ated that an examination

of the relationship between individua1 characteristics

(e.g., test anxiety) and th e

..
instruc tional se tting is, an
,

appropriate research strategy. ~ For ,instance, the studies of

 li

53

of instruc t ionai manipuIatl.ons on test arude ty

1

provid ed evidenc e of s ituationai variable s ttia t contr ibute

to the di ffe ren tiai pe rforma.nc e of hig h and 10w test-anrïous

indi v iduais Ll nd e revalu a tive ci rcums tanc es. Wi th reg a.,rd to

te,sting situations, student.s of varying test anxiety ~leve1s

~

exam
--
apparently report
.
instructions
lnd~viç1ual

and trte
preferences for

feedback av ai 1able.
exam formats,

Me thods of
instruction and individual student characteristl.cs (e .,g. ,

5 tudy habi ts and scholastic abi l i ty) we re also found to be

related to testv"anxiety.

In disc uss ing th e le arning pr oc ess, Glase r (l967)

obse'rved that research ers had been overly concerned wi~h

genera,l Iaws of le arnl.ng and ha9 no t given suff lcien t

atten tion to individuai diffe rences., Sitn:Llarly, Spielberger

et al. (1979) pr oP9 sed that bath generai factors be

considered, such as the nature of the 1earning environrnent,

as weIl as individuai èogni tive and affective factor s. In

,,
terms of research methodo10gy, Doyle (1979) proposed that

investig a tor s employ an ecolog ic al approach to college

classroom functioning, an approach which involves a direct

focus on naturalistic, lIen/ir onrnen t-behavior" r ela t ionships

bet'we~n teaehers and stYdents. (Interestingly enough,

Phillips et al. (1980) a1so recently described the speciflc

need for a school ecologic al perspective in test anXle ty

research). Doyle specified, further, that more at~ention be

paid to individual differences in student processes as they

relate to specifie features of the classr:oom ecology.

"
l t goes wi thout saying that the cla ssr oom represen ts a
•

.
~. 1
,

54
),.,,-

complex
, /
en vironmen ti and, the presen t research is an a tternpt

to explore and describe sorne of the variables operating in

this se tt ing., Henc e, an indiv idu al di·ffe renc e pe'rspec tive

will be applied to an " investigation of' the in teraction of

test anxie ty ln the naturalistic university envirorunen t.

This study will examine, in two undergraduate classes, the

rela t~onships among te st anx~e ty (an i ndiv id u al stu den t

charac te ris tic) d'nd: the instructional context, studen t

study habits, studen t achievemen t and o th er po ss ible

contr ibut ing fac tor s.

-.

.'

"

' .
•

;
.

55

CHAPT ER THREE

DESIGN OF THE STUDY

In order te investigate the 'relationship be t~en test.,..

a rue i e ty a nd a se rie s 0 f variables in the univers.ity

environment, a descr1ptive-correlatienal study was .'1 '

undertaken. A descriPtff of the mate rials, procedure,

s ta tis tical analyses, and research questions that guided

this investigation is presented in this chapter.

Sample

Ferty university students enrolled in two separate

undergraduate courses were selected as participants for the

(
present study. Twenty-three students (mean age = 23.00)

were enrolled in an education cour'se titled: Intrcduction to ;'

Educational Media, 432-204A. The cour se was opt iOftal in

nature: the participants (5 males, 18 females) consistê'd

, <

primarily 'of Bacheler of Education 'and Bachelor of Physical

Educ ation s tuden ts.

The other 17 subjects (mean age = 19.65) were enrolled

in a requried compute r science cour se: Computers in

*1
Eng inee ring, 308-208A. . Th1S cou"r se was designed
"
" specifically for first year, Bachelor of ' Eng ïnee ring

s tuden ts. Due te the la rge nurnbe r of u ndergra du ate (f ir st

year) engineering students, two sections of the course were

offered. This may. explain the low number 'of su~jects in(the

final sarnplei 1t .is possible that the movement of

. '
sorne of

..
 . 56

the studen,ts, across these' two sections as weil as sôme low

attendance made it difficult for the investigator to arrive

at a large sample of stu.d~nts that consistently attÊmded th~\

a.ne section unden s tudy. Th e final sample cons is ted of 5

females and 12 males .

. The 40 subjects for· thi·S _ . r c h we re chosen fr om two

different subject areas in an attempt to arrive at

. a more
heterogeneous ;:;ample. Students agreed to participate in the

study after being informed of its purpose by the

invesqgator.

Instruments and Materials

Test Anxiety Measure

Thirty items from tW? recently developèd test anxiety

,
scales ,we re compiled a~d r evü~ed in order to form a sui table. ".

test anxiety measure. AlI 20 items from Spielberger et aJ,::.'s

(-1.980) Test Anxiety Inventory (TA~) we te inclu ded as we re

additional items from Saraso,n's Anx ie ty ~c ale

(TAS) - the latter items were in order ta conform

to the 8caling formàt present th eTAI. The TAI is a "',

self-repûr t scale designed to mea ure, individu~l differences

~n test anxiety. T'he TAS .also mea self-reported test

1 •. ~
anxiety.
('
oAppropriate rèliability ~nd validit Y 'data. exist to -
Q

suppor t these sc ales. For ir:rstanc e, Spielbe rg e r et al.

,..1(- "

(198 0) stated that the te st-rete st reliabi l i ty coeff icien ts

(on the TAI) we're ~pprOKima tely .80 in samples rang ing fr om

~.
- .----------------..,,, '1

57 ,
) !
<> 1

gi:l.jua~e ~gure-
.( dropped
students ta high school
ta .62 for
\
the group
students, whlle the

of hig h school studen ts

r etested af te r six 'months. For th e' TA S, Sa raso n (197 8l

i'ndicat;ed ttiat test-reteli?t' reliab!lities of over .'80 have

been obtained for in te rvals

, of severa.l weekS .._ .

The measure us~d in .the present study. (see Appendix Al

contained the 20 -iteme from the"TAI and 10 items tram

Sa rason 1 s (1978) TAS. Tp e ..c;Iuestionna-ire rtems followed 'a

4-poin 1:, Like rt-type ~cale:- (1) almost neve r, "(2) sometunes,
'() often, and [4) almosf always. .On the majority of the·
"

items, a hig h score (Lf" 4)- was india atiqe of' a hig her
degree of test anxiety. On the other hand, sorne items,
• -l
particula r.1y those chosen" fr om the TAS, we re i:eve r sedi
therefore, a 4 on these items indicated the absence o~test
(
anxiety.. These reversaI-type items were used- in an attempt

'to control for the development· of biased response ·se-ts.

1
rnt.er-item Peàrson correlations an~' exploratory factor

analysi::; ind~cated that it wàs necessary to exclude sorne of

, the test anxiety items from further analyses. (The

i'nter-item correlation matrix appears in Chapter 4). In

particular, it was discovered that items 19, 24,26,27, 28,"

~'"
and 29 did not demonstrate acceptable carrela_tians (rë!!'.35)

with 'the other test 'anxiety items or appropriaté ractor

10adings with the relevan t subsc ale factor s. Th i5 f ind l.ng

strongly suggested that these items be del'e ted. Through

factor analysi~ of the remaining test anxiety items" (see

Chapter 4) ~t was possible ta delineate t wo subsc ale's which

we-re s imi lar ta those ofteh repo'rted by Spielbe rger ang

 58
, [}
which we re cons isten t wlth the factor s in Liebert and
Mor ris 1 s model. :'-The items we re then combined us ing standa rd
-' ~
scores. /rrtn:~ stafldard, scores on items 1,2,7,8,9,10,11,

12,13,15,'16,,18,2.9, and 23 formedan "emotionality"

subscale. Standard scores dh items 3, 4,5, 6, 14, 17, 21,

22, 25, and 30 fotmed 'a "wor ry" subsc ale.

Perception Qu 7stionnaires

In an e-ft;or t ta obtain informa tion cone erning studen t

,
att i tudes 9nd opinions towa rds 'th e inst;ructional situ amon,

a "séudent ,-perceptions" questionnaire was compiled. This

.. j"'--J
4'-poin e, Like.rt-ty~e questionnaire consisted of ~7 questions

assessing the stud~nts' perceptions of the instruction. The

items we re obtained fr om an item c atalog developed by the'

,c
- Purdue Res'e'~rch Founda tion ~19 7 4) •
~
o

An, ex pl~ra tory factor analys is 'revealed that the

,A

percep~ion items could be. cate.gorized into three factors.

~

The three subsç ales that ,resu]teS! cont~ined items relating

,,
tQ the following dimensions -of G 1assr oom_pr oc esses:
\- '
,
general pr e sen tat:icn ~k i ],ls, (2 ). strueture and (3 )

disç uss ion. ("Eva1~ation" usu à1ly appears as a sepiHate

factor in' ~he teaching eva1uation literature; however due to.

" .
the timing of the data collection in the pre'sent study this

factor did n~ t appe'ar separa tely) . Fac tor ~cor es '0 n items'

1,2, 4,-,6, 07, 8---9j 10, 11,' 12,1,3, 19" 2'2', 2~, 24,· 25, '26,
and ~
27 .formed-.th'Wgeneral presentation -~,
skill subscale. ~ ')

, ~

Factor scot'es on·itelJls.3, 51 14, )15, and 16 cor responded to

o . , 'l'

th-e dise;: uss ion subsc-ale ,whi le those on items 17" 18, 20, and

t \
,
, .
, c, >. 0

..
.. o· •

59

21 formed the structure Subsc-ale.

( , iii'
The st:udent perceptions questionnaire also contalned a

separate section assessing students' study habits. The

'J;.
seven addi tional items OOn s tudy habl t s~ foliowed the 27

instructional evaluation
A
",,'
. questions. These items were
l'ncluded 'due to recent research findiogs sllggesting that

information of this nature is very i~or tant to discussions

of test1"nxie ~ ,and classroom pe rforrnanc e. In an
i
.. 4

Il
explora tory anijtlys is i t was found that the study habIt it,ems
. (
contained \thrèe which could be desc r ibed ·as

me asu.,r ing: th e ef fec t i ven ess of study habits, students 1

'" ,
organiza tion for study ing and help-seek ing' behavior (see

Chapter 4) . ,.
,
The remairrtng questionI}~ire items rne-rely r equired
(
background informa tion fr'om s tudents. (~ee Appendix A for a

" sample of the n~tudent pefceptions" questionnaîrel.

"~

A "self perceptions" 9uestionnaire was also given to

each instructor. This questionrraire was very ~irnilar ,to

that<>adrnini"stered to students; eSSehtially, lt consisted of

25 items which were adapted into parallel que~~ns for the
, .
two instructor s. This questionnaire was gi:ren to the
o

instructors in an effor t "'to ascértain whether their views

we re consis ten t w ith those of the s tuden ts.

Observational Measure J
In order to rela te the conunen ts by studen ts and
, in~t.ructor s co lX: erning the instrtic tional envir onrnen t, an
. 1
>

observation checklist (see Appepdix A) was .adapted fr om the

, ~ . .,

\,\ L •
 "

60

Cë\ tegOt)' obse ria,tio n sys tem de'sc r ibed ëy Cranton and
. . il
H~llgartner' (19Bl}. (Not 'all'of, ~he categories wp~hin this
r
system we re use~:I- a description of tho,se ,c,ategories of

major interest to the present study appéars in the following'

paragr:ap'h). .To'he .t'elia~i·l±ty of the checkl,ist wa$ asses:s~d

by having two observers _qtili,ze it, during an actual

classroom l~cture.' Thè inter-rate'r agreement was calculated

to be .80 Jsing the $pearma,n rb~ correlationa~ 'techinqlte. j~~

The checklist was designed to qocurnent the ~requ-ency 'of
. 'and J,ns~uctional.
, . cert(j1tin ca.tegor ies ,of in truçtor behavior

ac t iv i t ies" '(pr oviding faces or

including: da ta iecturing
, ' ,
opinions abOut the Gontent as well aS' onel,s own ideas) 1 data

illusl:ra'tion (~sing and ,cases 'to

'illustrate 'data),;
.datapersonal
lin'k~ng
experiences

(using generalizing and

.
6umma r ii ing sk i 11'5 presen ting da ta) i management

(a~inistr~tiy'e, ~ctiV"lt,;i:es~ inclu-ding th,~ collection and

l' di,s.tributi~n"
, , ..,
Df ""m~t~rials,
,. :
exercises," and 5chedules)';
,,' S truc:;:t~ r îng (9rga<niz ing th~, clas:s' in 'rj:!ga~d to conten t and
, ~

pr.ocedur~, ine1udès sétting dbjectives); instructor-intiate.d,

(;0
questioning (question~ by instructor aoout conten t and/or

discuss iQn":faei li ta t ing ,questions) i' and direet studen t

qu~stioning (questio ns by studen ts about eonten t or 0 ther . '

detai1s) . (F~r a further description ?(f, the id.entifying'

1
Aomponen ts withi'i'l these categor ies, 5ee 'Appendix A).

In, us ing this ch ec klis t, the obsérver recOI:ded the

behavior (dur ing ,15 second - sequences) and' a tick was' placed

within the category that corresponded with the behavior (s)

and, act ivi ty that hàd dominate"c throug,hout that partie ula r

...
.,

,'
j, -' J--- -
 61
15 $econd interval. ,(The full details on the use of this
(
observation sntem appear in the "pr.ocedure'" secttonl '

\. Procedure,
1

The fir st direct observation of cour se l (the Media

course) took place qn October 4, 1982. The instructor's
beohàvior was observed, for a series of five minute periods

th'roughout the two hour cl~ss. Dur ing each 15 second

interva1,. the observer· noted-" the category containing the

behavior that had predomina ted du ring that pa rt ic ula r

"
in terval. (In a few instances, two forros of behavior or
1
activity preyailed - thus, two ca)tegories were noted). In
1

between these· five minute periods df direct observation, the

(
inve,stigator also took notes on the activitieè occurr ing in

the c1ass.

This same procedure was followed for the first set of

,observations conducted- in course 2 (the Engineering-Computer

course), which took plÀce o~ October 5, 1982. The. only

difference was that there
J
were fewer five minute periods of

direct observation since the class, , . was only one'" hour long

whereas the Media course was two hour~ long.

,
Both cla sses we re obse rved a second t ime dur ing the ft]
term: courSe 1 on November 8, 1982 and course 2 on November

9, 1982.. , At this time the_perception questionnaires were

-administered to the students and pxofessors. The same

, , . ïnstruètions were given to bath groups. . The, investigator

f ir st desc r ibed, in general terms, the nature of th'e

 ----------"""-'----~,""., -,:",~"
."" ~, ,

62

r esearch. The investigator then told students that their

re s1(0nses would bè an àppréc ia ted contr i!ution to the

research. Finally, the classes were provid d with a few
-...
co~ents on the importance of the t~st anxiety issue in
education. The researcher received full cooperation from

the students and professors.

With regard to' the test anxiety measure, it was not

"pos~ible to administer the inventory at the same point in

\
the semester for both classes. In course l thé test anxiety

scale was given on the day of th e final examinat ion:

Novembet 22, 1982. In course 2 , 'l

lt was not pO,SSl"bl e to glve

the measure on an examination day - instead, studen ts

responded to the test anxie ty sc ale on the day' of. the last

classroom lecture pr ior to the mid-te rm examination.

Co nsequ en tly , the test anxiety scale was a~inistered on

" .
Octobér 19, 1982 whi le the examination was coooucted on

October 21, 1982. The author cautions that this occùrrence

represen ts an inpor tan t dis tinction be t~en the t wo classes'

and a point to be considere"d throughout the research.

,
It should also be men tioned that, wh:i le the test

anxiety rneasure was administered in course 2 before the

student percept~ons questionnaire, i t was administered after

this questionna1re in course 1. In ad<;Htion, ,in order to

match the pe rcept 10n questionnaire and ~

,test anxie Ey

response s for each s tuden t, th e instructor attempted to

ensure that each student who had-a1ready completed one

questionnaire did also complete the second measure. In

cour se 2, for instance, the investigator was allotted

.'
1
- - ---- ---'-------------......" ..
"
,
1

1 <

addi tional class time te adminlstèr the pe rception

(
queséionnâir'es to those students absrnt the fir.st time. On

the day that the te st anx ie ty sc ale wa s adminis te red in

course l , students 'who had not previously filled out the

pe rceptio!,\ qu estionnaire we ce 9 iven a copy to comple te.

When all the questionnaires and inventories wère received,

the data collection phase of the study was complete.

l
, ~

Research Qu estions
'. ,

The course and developmen t of this' exploratory study

" ,

we re inf luenced by some major research notions. . The

, . -resulting reseatch questions were as follows:

1) How can the rela tionship be tween test anxiety and th'e
( 1)

university classroom environmen t be descr ibedo - ln

\ .. ~,~ ,

gen eral te rms?

2}, Us ing an individual diffe rence perspective, what are

Xt
( \the relationships among: test anxietyr instrucd~nal.;, ~
variables in the instruction,al ,environment, and·~

~------student characteristic-s (e.g., study habits, student

, .... -
achl.evemen t)?

3) How can the influence of student achl.evement on the

\ test anxiety-instructional setting relationship be

described?

4) What is the relationship of th~ student Characteristil

of study habits to test anxiety and the instructional

(
environment?
 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _•___ --.........:.:: ,~,~t'

.,"1

) Statistical Analys is
Il
64

Initial statis~ical analysis involved thé cOIllJ!'utatio,n

.
of descriptive statistics on aH the variables. Inter-itein

Pearson correlations were, then calculated on the test

.
anxiety and perception questi9nnaire ltems. Fallowing this,

the SPSS (Nie et al, 1975) condescriptive prqcedure was used

to dete rmine the s tanda rd scor es on the te st anxie ty items

the standard scores we,re then combined, based on an

ex'pioratory factor analysis, ta form appropria~te subscales.

,
In the case of the 'student, perception items and the
..,
questions on study habits, factor analyses were used to

estima te factor scores. The factor scores we re then

cOmbined ta form the relevant subscales.

~n order to investiga±e research ques~ions land 2, the

perception and study habit factor scores were pla,ced into a

multiple regression pr ocedure with the test anxie ty

subscales as dependant variables. Additional iden,tifying

information was included in the regression analysis (e.g.,

sex of the student, class, stutlent achievement). The

observation data were dealt with a nonparametric fashion.

Frequencies for the observation categories were compiled as

were frequencies for aIl the other . ~ariables (i.e., test

anxiety factors, perception factors, study habit factors,

and student achievement). (A full descr ipt ion of this

statistical procedure and the others following it appears in

the Results section). Having obtained frequencies for aIl

the relevant var iables, chi-square analyses we re pe rfor,med

.. c- c' 1.

65

on each. Us·ing the chi-square results, contingency

(
ccoeff ic ien ts we re then computed in order to investig a te th-e
,
associa tion between the observational da ta and the 0 ther

variables. This information was used in :combination with

the regress ion analyses f indings to answe r research

questions 3 and 4 •

1
\

.;.

,
i
1

1
i,
~
 66

CHAPTER-: FOUR

RESULTS

The purpose of this explora tory study was to

investig ate th e rela tionl?h ips be tween test anxie ty and sorne

other variables (student perceptions of instruction, s't~dy

h abi' ts an d s tu d en t ac h'levemen
a t) in the natural classroom.

In this chapter the results of the statistical analyses will

be presented. The analyses performed on the data included

the following: descriptive statistics, in~er-item Pearson

cor rela tions, derivation of s tanda rd sc or es â.nd

,
compo site sc or es, explor a tory fact;:or analyses, mult iple

r~gress ion, chi-squ are analyses, and conting ericy c oeff ic ien t
, , -"
computations.

B ackgr ound Informa t ion

Initial analyses of the raw data consisted of the

computatl.on of descriptive statistics for aIl subjects

(N=40) on each test anxiety and perception quest.ionnaire

item. The frequencies for aIl the items we re also computed

across aIl subjects. In an attempt to provide sorne

bac~ground (iden tif Y ing) informa tion On each of the classes,

desc ript ive s ta tis tics we re cale ula ted on variable s within

these two groups. The means and standard deviations for age

and achievemen t wi thin each cla ss and across aIl subj ec ts

appear in Table 1.
,~.

\
67

Table l

Descriptive Statistics: l\ge and Achievement

Age Achievemen t

, Subjects me an standard devia ticn me art standa rd devla tion

"
N=40

class l
21.57

23.00
4.34

4.94
3.51
~3 .79
.. ".55. ,

.35

.'"". N=23

class .2 19.65 2.32 3 •.12 .54

N=l7

( ~
.'
"",

and Items
Analyses of Instrumen ts,--

Test Anxie ty Sc ale

In arder to assess the reliabiUty of the items,

inter-item ,.
Pearson correlations, were computed for the 30

test anxiety, inventory items, (see Table 2). The finding

"

that items 19, 24, 26, 27, 28, and 29 d,id not demonstrate

acceptable correlations (r~.35) with aI1 adequate number of

the appropria te test anxiety items strongly indicated that

.
these particular items m,ight best be.excluded from the major
,

analyses of the present study. Standard scores were then'

derived for the test alJXie ty items and these standa rd scores
 '---~--~------'i·1t *.'.

68

.. .
~ =t ~
".
~:~~~::;::l:;~~~~::!~8:Q
, ,. t ,.

:fi ~~!l!1~;~~~::~~:!l~88::l:::::l~~!l::6:;
1 l ' .. ,0
=~~~~~r:~~~~
" , 1

~ ~:;l:l;; ~ ::l ~ ~ !1 ~ ~ ~~ ~, ~ ~ " ~ ~ ~ :=

~J:;~~~~~
,
= R;J;:;:: ~ ~ ~ i=! ~:q ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ rn:: ~ ~
~ ":<l~::;t~~~;;t;~s!~~~~,~~=,~

...i. ~ ~::J::; ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ =l ~ :q~ ::'l ~ ;::j ~ ~

.. .....
~.
i..• ~
•
..
B
~

.....g
~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~/'~ ~ :: ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ =~ ~
o
u
...• ~~~~;I';~
1

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
.. ==~~:l~~~
=!==~~~:q~
.. ~~;I~~~
.. III ~ ~ l=i ~
~ !l ~ ~
1: ~ :
~ .;

...
\~ ............... ,. .... ~::I:::!:I=:::!:;=

1
 69

were used ~n an explora tory factor analys ls. This pr ocedure

(
was employed in otder to conf irm that the factor 5 tructure
of the test anxiety items was consistent with that reported

ln the test 'anxiety literature.

The factor analys is revealed that the standard scores

clearly formed two subscales. These subscales corresponded

to the "wor ry" and "emo tional i ty Il factor 5 typically
described in test anxiety research. It'ems 1 , 2 , 7 , 8 , 9 1 0 , l'
j

11, 12, 13, 15, 16" 18, 20, and 23 formed an emotionali ty

subsc ale whi le items 3, 4, 5, 6, 14, 17, 21, 22, 25 t and 30

formed a wor ry subscale. Th e emo tionali ty factor afcoun ted -

for 33.30% of the variance while t-he worry'factor accounted

for 9.00% of the variance (See Appendix B for a description

of the factor analys is resul ts) .
(

Perception Questionnaire
Inter-item Pearson correlations were also performed on

the 27 items contained within the s tuden t ' pe rcepti9n

questionnaire. (It should be noted t,hat qùestion 14 was

1 ~
excluded from the analyses because it appeared to be- an item

requiring a scaled response). All 27 items demonstrated

appropriate correlations 'with one another (See Table 3).
/

These correlations were next placed into an explÇ>ratory!

factor analys is procedure in order to conf irm that ,this

instrument had a sirnilar factor structure to that described

in the research.

The factor loadings obtained for the studen t pe rçeption

questionnaire items, formed three factors. 'Items l, 2, 4,_ 6,

. \
 1
"'~-

Table 3

Correlation Hatrix. Perception Questionnaire Item.

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 l2 21 24 25 26 27
Itea • 1 l. 3 ,. 5 li

1 .11 .16 .31 .la .81 .39 .61 .64 .25 .66) .53 .60 -.05 .14 .02 .54 .52 .45 .77 .62 .46 .76 .60 .56 .74 .18

2 .12 .46 .JO .15 .27 .60 .61 .U .68 .65 .53 -.04 .18 -.02 .30 .44 .40 .56 .54 .49 .59 .50 .48 .10 .57

3 .31 .56 .28 .04 .28 .02 -.06 .39 .20 .24 -.02 .47 .U .31 .23 .:25 .18 .33 .26 .42 .24 .22 .33 .35

4 .4,5 .42 .21 .31.27 .U .59 .51 '.43 .23 .16 .16 -.04 .17 .JO .16 .22 .47 .45 .11 <'4J .53 .42

5 .JO .16 .45.JO .23 ' .47 .3,f .U .23 .45 .33 .3,f .JO .37 .12 .18 .43 .38 .26 .18' .37 .42
j
6 .51 .1i2.62 .35 .18 .65 .51 -.06 .24 .15 ..52 .57 '.45 .1i7 .72 .50 .74 • li? .59' .81 ,12

.43.56 .31 .53 .38 .39 -.03 .36 .01 .16 .34 .24· .32 .31 .34 .38 .39 .20 .41 .51
7
.79 .U .71 .66 .67 -.05 .l3 .10 .H '.44 .50 .50 .41 .51 .81 .64 .23 .76 .75
8

9 .47 .67 .69 .63 -.11 .13 -.01 .37 .39 .50 .46 .n, .35 .58 .62 .21i .70 .69

.51 .60 .33 -.1'2 .16 .07 .05 .20 .• 46 .lB .32 .19 .27 .35 .22 .40 .26
10
.76 .65 -.04 ,31 .Ui .36 .51 .60 .51 .56 .61 .80 '.67 .53 .83 .71
11

12 .56 -.07 .04 .12 .12 .35 .51 .31 .50 .51 .68 .66 .43 .76 .68

.16 .40 .~ .23 .39 .60 .38 .48 .54 .69 .62 .46 .66 .66
11
.20 .14 -.l4 -.12 -.09 -.11 .06 .01 -.04 .05 -.02 .00 -.00
14

~
.43 .21 .32 .41 .25 .38 .Hi .17 .28 .24 19 .22
15

16 .19 .16 .32 .06 .07 .02 .17 .12 .36 • .14

.09 .37 .31 .26 • .44

..
17 .60 .32 .56 .35

18 .46 .51 ~ .JO .51 .47 .28 '.57 .57

19 /
.58 .57 .48 .52 .59 .U ~7 .62
.69 .40 .60 .54 .42 .60 .71
20
.42 .52 .60 .46 .54 .61
21
.61 .53 .41 .62 .60
22

23 .69 .45 .89 .B3

,.
24 .511 .79 .69
.52 .41
25 -..J
.B3 o
26

21

- 1
ti:
 71
7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, and 27

formed a "general presen ta tion sk i 11'' factor (accoun ting for

46.50 % of the var iance).
1 •
Th is factor inclu ded those items
l
which often yield :. separa te "evaluation" factor in the

teaching-evaluati~n literature. Factor 10adings on items

17, 18, 20, and 21 corresponded to a "structure" factor

(accounting for 8.50% of the variance). (It should be noted

~at due to the negativè loading of it'em 14 within the

"structure" factor, it was considered ~asonable to place

this it<::m within the "discussion" category). The loadings

-
on items 3, 5, 14, 15, an!;1 16 formed a "discuss ion" factor
, .
(accou'nting for 7.20% of the ça:rianc e) . (Appendix B

contains the fact6r ana1ysis results).

·1

(
Study Habit Items
1
Simi1arly, inter-item corre1ational analyses were

pe rformed 0 n the seven s tudy' habit items contained within

,
the studen t pe rcept io n questionnaire (rep~esen ted by

questions 29 thr ough 35). Th e resul ts f rom this ana1ys is 1

1
appe ar in Table 4. The correlations were submitted' to 1

factor ana1ys is in order to further ex plo r e . th e

re'la tionship!iI among the items.

factor:s: th e fir st
This analysis
fac tor (represen ted by questions
yield~d three
33 and
l'
1
l
34) contai~ed items pertaining to the students' ability to
1
plan, org anize and or ien t their study time; th e seçond
factor (represented by questions 32 and 35t- con§is·ted of

items relating to t"e effectiveness of student study habits;

and the third factor (representedby questions 2.9; 30 and

l
 o
. 72

,'''',

'0
Table 4

--
0
~--
Correlation Matrix: Study Habit Items , \'

,y[

g;.

Item # 29 30 31 32 33 a 34 35
,
\

29 .13 -.08 -.20 .17 -.01 -.25

')
'" 30 -.16· .14 ,- .,01 -.12 .2'3
31 -.01 -.13 -.08 .24

32 -.08 .18 .36

33 ~
.60 - .16
34
~ -.11
~" 35
.
'l-,
 -
,----------------------- -

"

)
73

31) contained i'tems pe rtain ing to th,e s tuden ts 1 ab i 1i ty ta

( "
approach instructors and to seek help as " well as items
requiring
....
studen ta to pr ovide c olllQa ra tive informa tion on

their study-related behavior. The first factor accounted

f.or 26.30 % of the to tal var iance, the second accoun ted for

21.30% and the third I7.aU%. (};ppendfx B contains th e

factor' analys is results).

Prediction of Tes,t Anxiety

,
In order 'to determine the relationship between test

anxiety and the remaining studen t and classroom

)
<>
characte r istics, muit iple regress ion analyses we re 'pe rLormed

with the worry and emotionality (test anxie ty) subscales

acting as the d~penden t var iable s and th e three peQ rception
, ç .. factor s, th~ three study habit fa~tors and s tuden t
. achievement acting as independent vafiables. To investigate

t'he effect of 'sex "and of class membership on the

rela tionships, re'gress ion analyse s we re also pe rfor.med on

these 'sub-samples. (The correlations among th e maj or

variable~, in the stùdy ~ppear i; Table 5)

1

,1
oWhen the r egress ion analys is was cooouc ted us ing 40
~
SUbJects,'-f.'none of the variables accounted for aDnoticeable
e .;

ptoportion '" of the

"
. . variance of either worry or emotionality
1

, . {e.g., perfac 2 - ",structure" - accounted for 8.15% of the 1

, ,
var iance of em? tiqnali ty whi le shfac l - s tudy habits factor 11
"

l·-accouhted for 10.56i of the varianc e of wor ry) • (See

.r.
Table 6 for 'these results) • 1
• 1

, 'J
I~
.. ..

"
 /::
- - - - --

/
\
91'\-;;;

74
,"
" "

- Table .5

Correlation Matrix: Major Variables

Perfac Perfac Perfac E W Shfac Shfac Shfac

Age SA l 2 3 1 1 2 3
": [.
f

Age .28 .33 .20 .05 -.09 .0'1 -.09 .13 -.21 ~

II'
SA .44 .36 .01 -.09 -.03 -.30 -.06 .03

Perfac
.00 .00 .08""-.16 -.28 .09 .54
l' ~

./'-~

Perfac -.28 -.17 '-.15

.00 -.16 -.06
2

Perfac

E
.3 -.20 -.01

.56 -.16
.08 S9. /"',\

. 2
-.03

. 09

W -.32 .13 -.25

'.
Shfac -.00 -.00
l

Shfac .00
2

Shfac
3

...:
Legend: SA (stu'dent aChievement)
perfac i (general presentation skill)
Perfac 2 ,( structure)
Peifac 3 (discussion)
IV
E (emotional~ ty)
W (worry) "',
,
Shfac 1 (study habits factor 1) ,( .
" ....__ t.
".,
Shfac 2' (study habits factor 2)
Shfac 3 (study habits 'factor 3)
,,--

\,
.. .
\. ~

, ,

'.
 -- - ----------.....

75

Table 6

Regression Analysis Results: N = 40

Variables 2
SS* df B R

. Ernotiona1ity

Perfac 2 B13.77 1,38 -2.84 .08

Shfac 1 493.01 2,37 -2.17 .13
Perfac 3 618.23 3,36 -1.80 .16
Shfac 2 660.71 4,35 1. 20 .17
Shfac 3 667.65 5,34 .43 .17
SA 671.46 6,33 - .63 .17

,J '

..

\' 1
-~
•
 ...

76

By c ategor iz ing 'subjec ts according to class membe rShip,

it was possible to account for a 1arger proportion of the

variance. For c1ass l, perfac 1 ("genera1 presentation

skill") predlcted emotionality', (R 2 = 12.50%) whi1e shfac 1

accounted for 13.12% of the total variance; for the worry

factor, shfac 1 (students' study time or.g aniza tion)

accollnted for a sizeab1e proportion of the total variance:

33.74%. In class 2, pe rfac 2 ("structure") predicated

emotionality (R 2 = 41'.10%). On worry, SA (studen t

il
achievement) and shfac 2, cOmbined, accounted for 35.92% of

the total variance (SA, R 2 = 20.53%; shfac 2, R 2 = 15.39%).

-
(These results appear in Tables 7 and 8).

Upon c1assifylng sllbjects by sex, sorne interest~ng

re sul ts we re obtained. For the females, perfac 3

("dlSCUSS ion") predic ted emotionali ty (R

2 = 13.81%); on

worry, shfac 1 (students' study time organizatlon) accounted

for 26'.41% of the variance whi1e shfac 3 (students' approach

and help-seeklng behavior) accounted for 21.70%. For the

males, perfac 2 accounted for a noticeable proportlon of the

.total variance of emotionalitt (R 2 = 31.91%) while shfac 3

accounted for 12.85% of the total variance. In this

particular group, the independent variables did not predict

worry. (See Tables 9 and 10 for these results).

n

". ,..A
Observalional ~

The relationship between the observational data and the

student and course characteristics could not be directly

'-
:1';;1'1'1)4
•
\
~ 77

Table 7 . '

Regression Analysis Results: . Class 1

~
"D

2
Variables SS* df B R

/ Emotionality

Perfac 1 293.29 1,21 -9.97 .12

Shfac 1 600.13 2,20 -3.62 .26
Perfac 2 710.43 3,19 7.05 .30 \

Shfac 3 776.38 4,18 2.26 .33

j Perfac 3
Shfac 2
833.69
963.24
5,17
6,16
-1. 74
2.99
.36
.41
SA 964.93 7,15 - .89 .41

Worry
( Shfac 1 456.32 1-,21 -4.38 .34,
Shfac 2 513.29 2,20 1. 43 .3'8'
Shfac 3 578.81 3,19 -1. 87 .43
Perfac 2 591. 04 4,18 2.07 .44
Perfac 3, 595.84 5,17 - .67 .44
• Perfac 1 597.81 6,16 -1.19 .44

*cumu1ative sums of squares

,l
l
~
J
 ..
j. 78

Table 8

Regression Analys~s Re~~l:t's': Class 2

Var~ab1es SS* df B R2

Ernotional~ty

Perfac 2 594.69 1,15 -5.31 .41

Shfac 3 693.12 2,14 2.48 .48
SA 769.16 3,13 4.12 .53
Perfac 3 / 801.26 4,12 1. 48 .55
Shfac 1 830.07 5,11 -1. 63 .57
Perfac 1 834.45 6,10 .90 .58
Shfac 2 837.42 7,9 .58 1 .58

,.
~-
-----
Worry

SA 39.99 1,15, 2.91 .20

Shfac 2 69.97 2,14/ -1. 66 .36
pe'rfa:'c 3 79.18 3,13, .77 .41
Perfa<!: 1 85.07 4,12 .59 .44
Shfac 3 91.02 5,11 - .82 .47
Shfac 1 96.53 6,10 .74 .49
Per,fac 20 96.89 7,9 .20 . 50

*curnulatïve suros of squares

"
- -----------------11

79

l' Table 9

Regression Analysis Results: Females

2
Variables SS* df B . R

Emotiona1ity

Perfac 3 306.03 1,21 -3.98 .14

Shfac 2 495.01 2,20 3.54 .22
Shfac 1 660.03 3,19 -2.52 .30
Shfac 3 -860.55 4,18 -3.51 .39
SA 885.80 5,17 -2.23 .40
Perfac 2 911. 76 6,16 1. 98 .41

Worry'
( Shfac 1 355.03 1,21 -3.68 .26
Shfac 3 646.72 2,20 -4.21 .48
Shfac 2 744.63 ,,3,19 2.21 .55
Perfac" 1 838.05 4,18 -2.62 .62
Perfac 3 878.89 5,17 -1.10 .65
Perfac 2 924.73 6,16 -2.71 .69
SA 951. 08 7,15 3.25 .7l

*cumulative sums of squares.

l
(

1
1
1
î

" i
 80

Table 10
,.
Regression Analysis Results: Males, .

-
Var·iables SS* df B R2
..
Ernotionality

Perfac 2 .499.25 1,15 -4.34 .32

Shfac 3 700.42 2,14 3.67 .45
SA 852.73 3,13 5.77 .54
Perfac"" 1 922.79 4,12 -2.80 .59
Shfac"l· 1005.45' 5,11 -3.79 . 64'
Perfac 3 1033.03 6,10 1. 36 .66
Shfac 2 lq61.55 7,9 -1. 43 .68

,
Worry .\

Perfac 2 16.60 1,15 - .79 .06

Shfac 2 27.87 2,14 - .78 .09
n 36.33 3,13 .73 .12
Ilfac 1
43.16 4,12 1. 33 .1S
Perfac 3 - 47. 64 5,11 .62 .16
Shfac 1 51.97 6, la .74 .18
Shfac 3 52.24 7,9 .20 .18

*cumulative surns of squ~res.

.,
 --------- -. ---------

81

examined since the unit of analysis for the observations ~as

the class and the unit of analys is for the remaining

variables was the student. The fO'llowing procedure was

developed ta allow an indirect investig a"t~on of the

re1a tionships: (1) The test anxiety, student perception,

v s tudy hab~ t, and studen t aehievement variables we re

converted ilito proportions of high, medium and low responses

for each class. eut-off points for the categories were

one-half a standard deviation above and below the mean for

each variable. It was felt that the use of this particular

cut;",off po~nt adequately separated the dê\ta lnto c-ategories

without resulting in the loss of too much information. This

step converted the unit of ana~YSiS for these variables to

the elass. (2) The observational data were described ln

{
terms of the frequencies of occurrence of each category of

behavior in each class (see Table 11). Frequencies were

,
then eonve rted ta pr opor tions of the te tal numbe r of

abse rv a t io ns, sa that all the data would have the same

forma t. (3) It was then possible to ealculate eontingency

coefflcients for each variable (us,.lng propor tians .- of h~gh,

medium and low responses .or behavior s) across the classes.

Wh en th e cont~ng ency eoef fie ien ts are s imi la r, this

provides indirect evidence that the variables are associated

in sorne way, and when the coefficients are dissimilar, it is

unlikely that a rela tionship exis ts among the variables.

l"~

This procedure is analogbus ta the comparison of two or more

slopes (BI s) ~n regression analyses. If, for example, test

anxie ty respo nses y ielded the same contingency c oeff ic ien t

\
 82

Table 11

Observational Data: Frequencies

Observational Class 1 Class 2

Category (frequencies (frequencies
out of 184) out of 120)

Data lecturing 64 (34.78%) 61 (50.83%)

Data illustration 23 (12.50%) 6 ( 5.00% )

""
,
. Data l~nking 20 (10.87%) ·18 (15.00%)

Management 6 ( 3 . 2 6%) 2 ( 1.67%)

. Structuring 28 (15.22%) 14 (11.67%)

Instructor-initiated 28 (15.22%) 13 (10.83%)

questions and discussion

Direct student questions 12 6.52%) 6 5.00% )

......_"'" '" fi'"

'h

(
~ /
. •

83

across classes as did the observation data,' there would be

{
..
indirect evidence that these variables may be associa ted .

The contingency coefficient results and the chi-square

results appear in Table 12. The range of C'oncingency

coefficients (across aIl the relevant variables) was from

• 07 to .57 • The contingency coefficient (C) for

emotionality was calculated to be .07 while that for worry

was .37. The contingency coefficients for the percept.ion

factors were (in order): .55, .52 and .22 while those for

the study habit factors were: .33, .17 and .18 and the C

for s tuden t achievemen t was .57.

Addi tional Informa'tion

7
In ? the procedure section of the preceding chapter,

men tion was made of the fa;J! that a questionnaire was also

given to the instruc tor s in order to ,compare their

~

perceptions 'of the instruction with those of the students.

Even though no statistical analyses were performed on thlS

data, the responses of the instructor appeared to be quite

consistent with those of the students.

Summary
J
i
1
The statistical analyses of the instrumen ts

demonstrated that the test anxiety items formed two subscale

1
factors - emotional~ty and worry while the perception

qu~stionnaire items formed three factor s: "gen erai

.j
1
1
 84

Table 12

Chi-Square and Contingency Coefficient Values:

Maj or Variablés

Variable . C

-----
Observational data 1 24.28 .27
E .20 .07
p
W 6.48 .37
Perfac 1 17: 24 .55
Perfac 2 15.04 .52
Perfac 3 .! 1.97 .22
Shfac 1 4. 95 .n
Shfac 2 1'". '25 .17
Shfac 3 1. 43 .18
SA 19.27 .57

Legend: ,E (emo'tj,onal i ty)

W (worry)
Perfac l (general presentat~on skil1)
Perfac 2 (structure)
Perfac 3 (discussion)
Shfac 1 (study habjts factor 1)
Shfac 2 (study habits factor 2)
Shfac 3 (study habits factor 3)
SA '{student achievemeijt)~
- ~~l

85 ~
,1,
presen ta.tion sk i Il'' , "s trudtu re", and "discuss-ion" . The .
1
,
( <

items on study habits could also be sepa.ç.ated into three

factor s rela ting~- to-: s tu den ts' t irne or ien ta tian, the
"- i
effect:i.veness-
o
of study habits and students' ~elp-seeKing 1
1.

behavior.

The 1lUl1tiple regression analyses performed for aIl 40

subjec ts)' for each class and for e ach sex y ield ed a var ie ty
• of pomplex rela tionships. In class l, pe rfac land shfac l

predicted test anxiety while in class2, studen t

achievemen t, pe rFac 2, and shfac 2 accoun ted for no tic eable

proportions of the total variance of the test anxiety

fa tor s. Pe rfac 3 and shfac l predicted test anxie ty ih

females while perfac 2 and shfac 3 were found ta be the
relevant variables for the males.
(
.. Further, the contingency coefficient results, arising

from the nonparametic, treatmen t of the observational data

and the other variables, ranged in s ize from .07 to .57 ;

these data will lead ta an indirec t analys is of the

? rela tf9'hiPS among activities in the classroom and test

anxie ty in the next chapte r.

t
.
\
~
<,
l'

, ' 86

CHAPT ER F IVE

DISCUSSION

Th e major obj ec tive of this desc ript ive-cor re'la tional

study was ta explore and describe the relatianships among:

test anxiety, the instructianal environment and specifie

student characteristics, Due to the intrinsic nature 'o.f

naturali s tic inquiry, one' should not be surprised" at

discovering a range of results as weIl as some çomplex

findings.
, '

Prediction o~~
Te~ Anxiety

,.
Of pr ima ry in te rest to the presen t discuss ion are the
..
results from the regress ion analys is and those aris ing from'
r
the . .' i
stat~st~ca treatrnen t of the observational data. As
-seen from Table 6, the regress ion analysis findings for
. '--":\
aIl
...

:,
40 subjects indicatéd that none of the factors accounted for

a no tic eable pr opor tian of the variance of either .'

emot:ionality or worry. Perfac 2 ahd shfac 1 were thé only

factor s that appeared ta have any connec tion to the test

o

anxiety factors (perfac 2 accounted for 8.15% of the

variance of emotionali ty whi le shfac l accoun)ted ~or 10.56%

of the variance of worry),

It appears that, by analyzing bath classes together, it

r '\. ' \

~ / was not possible to uncover direct information that would

( , lead ta the general description of the rela.,tionship between -,

te st anx ie,ty and the clasSroom envir orunen t (research

, ~

(
 ---------,.~ ..-

87

question ,1"). One might speculate that no relationship was

found ~n this partjpular analysis because the differences

across ,the classes may have "averaged out" any, poss lble

prediction. However, thlS analys 1.S did llluminate those

factors that might have sorne role ln predicting test anxiety

within the classes (as will be discussed in later sections

of this chapter) .
\\
Upon exarnining th e regre ss ion resu l ts appearing when

subjects we re categor ized according to class membership and

gender, it was possible to begin to address the research

questions of the presen t study. In class l (the Media

cour se), for in stanc e, pe rfac l a n d shfac l pr edicted

ernotionality while shfac l accounted for a s ize able

propor tion (33-.74%) of' the variance of wor ry. (These

results appear in Table 7). It would appear that perfac l,

the instructor's general presentation skil1, was associated

. 1
with emotiorialHy for s tuden ts 'in the Media cour se. Shfac 1
1

(studen~s' ability to orien~t and organize their study tirne)

was also related to both of the test anxiety factors.

The findings from the ana1ys is for c1ass l provided

,suppor t for studies that have discoverèd a series of

poss ible rela tionships be tween te st arueiety and study

skills/study habits (e.g., Culler & Holahan, 1980; Kirk1and

& Hollandsworth, 1979; Martin & Meyers, 1974). Cu1le rand

Holahan have proposed, for example, that an important

underly ing variable in the test a rue ie ty-pe rfor manc e

.
rela tionship rnay be "how s tudy time is used". l t is wor th

no ting that a fai ç proportion of these studies (/.g., Allen,

. -.

/ /
f
88

Lerner & Hinr ichsen 1 1972i Des id era to & Kosk ine( t 1969 i
(
Martin & Meye rs, 1974) used solely or pr ima ri ly female

subj ec ts - the membe r ship wi thin class l also cons is ted of

/
/ 18 females as opposed ta 5 males.

In reviewing the regress ion results for class 2 (the

comp ute r cour se for eng inee ring s tu den tS) 1 it is appa ren t

that perfac 2 played. a major raIe in predlc t ing

n.Hi ty, by accounting fér 41.10% of the total

var (See Table 8 for th e comple te re sul ts) . The

i'lication is that the structl,lre within this instructional

environment was the best predictor of student emotionality

(1. e., studen ts 1 phys i010gic al r e ac tions su rr ounding te sts) .

For the wor ry factor, studen t act/l,evemen t (.?A) and shfac 2

accoun ted for noti.ceab1e propordions of the total variance

2 shfac 2, R2
(SA, R = 20. 5 3 %; = 15.39%). On the one hand,

the effectiveness of student study habits (shfac 2) was

relevant to the appearance of worry-related feelings ln this

group of studen ts. By the same token, '5 tu den t achievemen t

in the course was also related to this particula~ test

anxie ty factor.

One suggestion is that, for the engineering students,

student achievement was associated with the individual's

cognitive coocerns and apprehension (worry) surr ounding

tests. Th i5 f inding offe r 5 additional in#=ormation to

researchers interested in examining the re1ationship between

test anxiety and aca.demie performance (e.g., Daniels &

Hewitt, 1978; Grooms & Endler, 1960). Par examp1e, Grooms

and Endle r (1960) discove red a nega tive cor rela tion be tween

/'
 89

test anx ie ty and studen t apt i tude. The au thor s; pr opo seq,

further, th at te st anx ie ty added ta the prediction of

academic achievement. Slmilarly,
\
the results from the

present analysis iIIq?ly that student achievement added ta the

prediction of worry in the class of engineering students.

It is also worth mentioning that class 2 consisted primarily

of male subj ects (12 male s as ôpposed to 5 female s) whlle

the Grooms and Endler sample coJ is ted en tirely of male

subjects. It is interesting thit, desp i te th e apparen t

methodological differences between the two studies, it was

poss ible ta. discove r compatible re sul ts - this f inding

lends support to test anxiety theorizing in this damain.

The lnq;>lication is that different factors were related

"ta test ameiety in each of the classes investigated in the

pr esen t study. By assuming that e ach classr /Jorn se tt ing

j
represents a complex environment, one might s~eculate that
membership in one particular class' resulted in a specifie
'\
series of test anxiety-clasSroom environment relationships

while membe rship in the other class was associa ted with

another set of relationships. The suggestion is that the

rela tionship be tween test anxie ty and the other var iables in
-
the present study may . very weIL be class-spec i f ic.

Consequeritly, the answers to research questions land 2 may

not be altogether straightforward, either. It is aiso

interesting that the regression analysis for the 40 subjects

demonstrat~d that two factors were possibly .associated with

test, anxiety i and, the results for class land class 2

revealed that these same two factors (shfac 1 and perfac 2)

 1

1
1
1-

were of maJor impor tance in predicting test

(
th'e cla sses.

A further :-egress ion pr ocedure was ~.e rformed by

\,
dlviding subjects according to sex (gender). (See Tables 9 l, 1

and 10 for these results). For, the 23 female stud.fÇnts from

classes l.;\nd 2, perfac 3 predicted emotionality (a'ccounting

, f

for 13.,81% ,of the total variance) whi le shfac land shfac 3
,
predicted worry (accounting fdr 26.41% and t.70% of the

total variance, respectiv.ely). Hence, the instructor's

discussion-related behaviol:: was associated with the fema1e

students' emotionality levels. For the worry factor, study

habi"ts were important in this group: combin ed, shfac land

shfac
....
3 a~counted~ for 48.11%· of the to~ variance
associated with worry. 'l;'he female studen ts 1 time
organization, th~ir, planning for studying and their

help-seeking behav ior ap~ared to be rela ted to their

,
cognitive concerns (worry) surroundl'ng tests.

For the male subjects, the resul t s we re no t'" as cie ar

'"
and as specifie as those fOr the females. Per:fac 2 and
/

shfac 3 predicted emotionaJ:i ty ( pe rfa c 2, R2 = 31.91%; shfac

3, R 2 = 12.85%) • 'bne might • corx: III de tha t" for - the male

studen ts', the structure in \ the instructional envir oomen t was

relevant to student emotionalie'y levels; the abi l i tx of

these studen ts ·to approach instructor sand to seek help was

.
also related to this factor. However, no one factor was
found to be i~ortant with reg(rd to worry in this g"'r oup 1
since none of the factors predicted worry in the males.
Somé imp()r tan t points should be men tioned regarding

j1 ....
 _____________ .
--:_----"t~,.!.:'"·;:.'}'t:t~J<J~>;l'

. 91

,0
this particular analysis. It is in te resting that, for the
" • _ f

feniale subjects-4 shfac, 11 account;.ed for ~,he 9'rea.test amount

, ;; !

of variance df either.of th~factors - shfac 1 ,was also the-

•,
most important factor in the ànalys is of class 1.
,.r
Similarly, cl.ass l consisted of a greater propor,tion of

temale s tuden ts (18 female s aS opposed ta 5. male s) . A

further point is that perfac 2, which accqunted for the

... .
greatest proportion .of the variance of either emotionality

,or worry in the males, was the sole factor. that predicted

emotionality in class 2 - class 2 was also cqmpose-a of 12

males as Qpposed to 5 females.

In sutnmary: by dividing the s tu den ts .in w these subj.ec t

groùpings (ei ther according to cIass membe rship or 9 ender)

it 'lias possible to examine the research questions of the

. .
presen t study in a more meaningful fashion. .The regress ion
analys is results suppor t the no tion that t~lnstruct ianal

environment and variables operating within and influencing

. .
this environment are intricately related ta student test
anxiety. findings pointed to the imPortant
contribution of spec i fic instructlonal factors' (e.g.,

studen t pe rc ept io ns of . instruction) , individual

characteristics (e.g., sex, class membership) and study

habi 1;: s to comp~ex test ânxie.ty-instruc tional en'{ii r onmen t

interactions. However, it should be understood that, .since
-
the sex variable and class membership wer~ confounded (Le.,
each of the classes contalned a

one particular sex), there ois no

.
large number of. students of

way of knowing directly

1
which variable 'lias most important in predicting test

•
...
 .' - - - - I - - - :: - - - - - - - -
K

,
92 /1
anx~ety.
!
t
Relationship Between Classroom Observations

and Regress ion Resul ts

1
The nonparametric treatment of the
,
observational data
also reve::tled sorne intriguing results, re~ulis that
\
uncovered useflJl informa tion' in address ing , t;esearch, 1
questions 3 and 4. (See Chapte r 3 for a full desc r ipt ion of
this pr ocedure and - Chapte r 4 for an i llus ~ra tion of th e 1
1
resul ts. ) The range of c.ontingency coefficients (:07 to
.57) indicated 'that there were different -----
degree{ of -:-',,-
associa tion be tween the classroom observations and· the
variables investigatea in the 1 pr~sent study. The
( !
contingency,coefficient (C) for the classroom observations i,
was .27, sugg@sting that ~hel two sexies of classr oom
- c'
oqserva'tions were related ln some ways. One might speculate

that the modeI;ate o

size of tbis coefficient iIq?lies that
1
,there were Sorne similarities between th~ behavior 5 and
, \
f
activlties ob~erved wlthin tpe two classroom settings. .i
With regard to -the test anxiety fa,ctor s, th.e C for 1
. 1
emotionali ty was dete rmined to be .'07 whi le that; for wor ry . ~-
~'

was .37. The low value of,the contingency coefficient for

emotionality seems to suggest that there were no t, noticeable'

differences between the ;two classes on this variable. There

appeared to be a releyant dis tinc tio~, on the other hand,
/ .
'bet~en the classes gn the worry œactor. One interpretation
, ,

might be that the wcjrry levels among the subjects were more
-(
J 1
/
/
/

, '
 "~'

o
. ' ...
.7
/-
93,
/ 1 /
;'

afFected 'by t~e envirorunent/ than the emotionality levels. ,

Ho~ever, it should also be noted that the diffe rences with
, /
regard to worry may also be assoc<iat~d with the apparent sex /
difference betwee,n the two classes.
The results for the 'perception façtor s also contained,
n' 1

sorne 'interest~ng findings. The contingency coefficieots for

perfiac l and"pertac 2 were call!ulated ta be. 55 anQ .52

(respectively)" while that for perfac 3 was .22. The

.
tnq;>lic ation is that the frequencies obtained for the tw6
classes on pe rfac l (general pr esên tation sk i 11) 'anè pe rfac
2 (structure) were" dissimilar while those for 'perfac a3

,, (discussi?n) 'were more simila-r. One mig ht spec ula teo~ "t.hat

'there "las a connection between the classroom.. environmen band

perfac'l and perfac 2 since these factors appeare,d to act

di ffe ren tly, depending on the environmen tal covitext.

The st~dy habit) factors also

. ~!
re,v:ealed Jan . in tr..iguing
'
pattern of resu.lts. The contingency coeffiçient values

,
, ,
were: shfac l = .331 shfac 2 = .17 f. and shfac 3 =
,
.18., . The
suggestion is tha the,re were di ffe renè es ( th ose of' a
moderate d,egree) t between the two clasS\es on shfac, 1

(studen ts' ability to p.lan and organize their study time)

• S
.' whl.le the ,classes we're more s imi lq r wi th respec t ,to the/
. '"7 /' '
other study habit factor S. App ..;;(ren t.ly f of the s tudy ~abit

factor s, shfac l was more rela ted to the classr oom se tt ing.
". ,
, r
The 'final variable' investigated.',: -'student achievement
c •
(SA) revealed the largest contingency . coeffici-ént: .57.
It is , appa'ren t that were noticeable di ffe rences

bëtween that two classes on this variable. The implication .

-'-
94

i s· tha ~\\, !i tuden t aahievemen t "lias more telated' to the

(
differen~ classroorn énvirorunen ts as comp~red ta ' thè other
variable s i1nvestig a ted in the pr esen t study.

An ~~formal
l
exam'ination
'l'-..
of the freqlo1encies in each of

th e obse~vational'br c ategor ies revealE!d sorne differences

" 1 ... -

'be tween ~he two classes. ( Th e pe r<!:en tage of di ffe renc e

bltwéen th\r two classes in terms of data lecturing {16.05%
diff-érence) was not';c eable as was that for t~e" da ta
1 .
i llus tra tion category (7 .50' qifference) . The pr ~ma ry

suggestion was that the two classes were more dij:fereI'} t in

\

1 terms of
.
the amount of data lecturing and data illustration
/

I~p - that was ob~erved,~- one- might speclllate that these specific
l,
c
instructional categories were related (as we re pe rfac land
..
pe rfac 2) to ,the test anxie ty var iable in th e classr oorn
1 1
env:ironmen ts. !
1
In summaz.y: the results from the statistical treatment 1
, d
(
of. the observ,at~onal dat~' provided a number of relevant
, 1
• f indings.

series of
. The gel'leral irnplic ati?n is

the classr com

that th ere we re
,
env~.r0nmen
~
a

t
l
and the factors of interest in the present study. One
1
,r
discovery was that the variables seemed to operate ïn
1
distinct patterns, depending 'on the Pêtrticular instructional
cantext. . The range
,
of cpntinge,ncy
1

coeff icien t
. "

results
' .
\.. ".
....'of}'
dernonstra teiJ. that . the situation is a complex 'one: each of
,
, .
the f~ctor s examined appeared to be affected by and to
influenc~ the clasSlioonÎ environnient in a specific
l .
fashion ..

In reviewing, the fÛldirigs fr om the regress ion analyses

'and those from the nonparametric l 'analysis of thè

,.
 ___ ~ ____________________ .
~'~'_f!~tt~'~'_~~~~

/
. '" '

• 95 -

lbservatio~al'
1

data, it, lS posSibt.e ta discover some

inportant similarities. For instanc , the finding (from
, the .
no npa rame tr le sta tis tics) t-h at pe rf~c land pe rfac 2 we re
, il

rela ted, in see~ingly different ways, to the classroom

environment was indirectly supported by ~he regress 10n
. , 1
analyses the regression results tor class l revealed that
'pe rfac 1 (gen~ral presentàtion skill) was relevant to the
, . ~

prlediction of emotïonality while' parfac 2 (structure) played

J!" major role in the results for class 2. simi larly, the

regres,s ion analys is demonstra ted thé\t studen t achievemen t

,
was related to worry in, class 2 (by accounting for a

s~.eable proportion of the total variance)~ in addition, the

,.
no nparame tr le procedures sug/3ested tqat there we·re
;
appreciable and impôr tan t di ffe rene es be tween the two

c,lasses on this facto't (SA) •

It.is also poss ible to uncover oth~r relevan t areas of

compatibility between th.e tw6 series of statistical

procedures. The regression resulEs demonstratea that the

two classes were, differen t in te rms of worry f- the
ob s e rv a t io nal data also that there 1 was a"
noticeable degree of difference between the two classes on
this particular factor. In addition, the two classes

appeared to
.
be diffetent in terms of perfac f,! 1
perfac 2,

shfÇlc l, and student achievement. We might speculate, then,

ttt~t these factors aIl· seemed to be relate'd (and possibfY in.

varying ways) to the students' worry levels within t~e two
cla1;sroom settings. Henee, these analogies provided further

ev id enc e of how' different. aspee t s O'f the classr oom

. ~

J '
 ',":-- .. _- ..,- 96

environment were related to test anxiety.

0, One obviollS coœlus ion to be drawn at this poin't lS
that the reIationships between test anxiety and feàtllres of

the classroom environment were represented by a serles of

fascinating and
n.

eomplex patterns. It
.
would seem that the

different variables in the present study-contributed, in an

.r
'in'trieate manner, to this situation. Apparently, the
('

results and findi~gs are quite d~pend~t on ,the particula r

;\1
factors in question as weIl as:the, specifie "sliee" of the

environmen t being examined.

o
Limi ta tions of the Presen t Study

The reader sh'buld be aware of the limitations

(
associa ted with the presen t investigation. Fir stly, it

should be noted that, ideally, the investigator shou.ld have

used a la rger sUbject sample; this effor t mig ht have se rved

l '
to counte rbalance the 105s of ~ufje~:s that ~esulted due to
the movemen t of studen ts (in' cour se 2) across the two

sections as weIl as sorne low a ttendance. It is, also ..

unfor tunate that the rese atch eT was u nable to a rr ive as. an

evenly distributed proportion of male and . ~emaie students.

1
~s a relIt, it is not possible ta genera,lize abo,..ut either' 1

sex or class membeq;hip, separately, since these two

1
j
identifier variables were comounded in the -preserlt study.
Further, the timing of the test anxie ty-v sc ale
l
;
l

'"
administration was problematic, since it was not feasible to ~1
j
administer the seales at the sarne point in the terrn for both
 1
classes (i. e., for class l = on the day of th e
97

final
1
,

1 l,
exaininatfon~ for class ,2 = .one lecture period pr lor to the

mid-te rm examination) " Finally, i t wou Id /'lave' been be tte r,

both methodologically and _"theoret~cally, to have used a

sample composed of more than two clas~es this approach

would bave permitted the class to be, used- as the unit of

analysis in the statistical treatment of the·data.

"

practical Implications and Future Recolllllendations

The practicai and educ ational irnplic ations of the

1 " 1

presen t inv.estigation are fa,r-reaching. For example, it is

./
àJpparent that test anxie ty represents a s ig nif ie an t

pèrsonality and individual difference variable and 'one that

should be of coocern to both instructor sand edué ational

\
researchers allke. Instructor s .in terested in encouraging

student learnülg and student adjustment to the classroorfi

7
setting rnay. begin to achieve this goal by d-iscovering these

factor s ( including instructional - variables) that may '{

. "

influence (to varying deg,rees) student test anxiety leveis

and, hence, the ernotionai climate of the classroom. 'Earnest

instructdrs
1
rnight alsô'" attempt' to measure test anxiê ty in

their classes and inforrn students of appropriate anxiety

reduction techniques, strategies or prograrns.

It i5 also ciiticai for educators to realize' that an

instruct;or 1 S teach i1\g sk i Ils (as wèll as studen t p~ rc eptions

of ~he> instruction) pr ob'al;>ly contr ibute in impor tan t ways to

this rela ti6ns.hip.'. Th e compa tibi l i ty (in the presen t study)

,1
!
1
-
98

between the lnstructors' perceptions of their teaching {nd

f', ,
j ~'l'J , the students' perceptions suggekts tha't one methoo of
1...

gainiIig valuable information on c/.assroom processes would be &

to periodically survey students for commen.ts and idea.

FinaIly, lnstructors should consider the possibility that

not ail i
students have effective study patterns and these
". J
'"
l
study habits may ve~ weIL be compounded by, the debi litating

effects of test anxiety.

It goes without saying that the generalizability of the

l
< f
present exploratory findings to other student populations

remai!1s an unresolved
illuminating the interrelationshi'p/between
issue.
1
Howfver, resea~ch aimed

te st anx ie ty and
at
l
1
!
the te~hing and learning environmen t r~presen tl? a pr omis ing
.
1
beg inn{ng endeavor. Future s'tudies should aiso attempt ta 1
!
( 1
provide educators with information on h ow me thods of 1

instruction may be' tai Iored to the individuai

1
.]
characteristics (e.g., test anxiety levels) of studen ts.

The suggestion is that information «n these complex

rela tionships May be obtained through

descriptive-co~relational studies s imi la r to the presen t

one. However, it might also be inter,esting to use

~

in te rviewing as an added fe ature of th e rese arch this

,
methodological technique mig ht pr dvide more detai led and
..1
"rich" information on the functioning of the test anxiety

variable. In addition, future investigations might be more

successful in exaltl1ning the test anxie ty - instructionai
.1

envir onrnen t ~a .tionship by employ ing instruct ional se tt 1ngs

kno~ to be different (e.g., a lecture methoo versus a
 .,

99'

d iscuss,ion me thod) . A further sugg estion is that~

research ers a ttempt to examine, iQ -g reate r depth, th e raie

G' _

of student study habits. Final,ly, educational researchers,

educ ator s, and practi t io-ner s sh ould emphas ize' th~,

1Il~,ltld~CiPlin.rY
/'/
;,nvestigation' of thè:test anx ie ty yr~able
.
/
-,/'
.
and should contin1,le in 'tb eir ef for ts at uncoverlng
appropriate test anxiety reduc'tian procedures . .
.1

,
\

. '

"
1
•
.-
...
-
100

( REFERENCES
.

Allen, G.J., Lerner, W.M., & Hlnrichsen, J.J. Study

behavlors and thelr re1atlonshlps to test anxlety
and acade~ic performance. Psycho1oglca1 Reports,
'1972, ~, 407-410.

Alpert, R., & Haber, R.N. Anxlety ln academlc achleve-

ment situations. Journal of Abnormal and Soclal
• Psychology, 1960, g, 207- 215. ',_/

Boor, M. Relatlonship of test anxlety and academlC

performance when eontrotled for lntell1gence. Journal
of C1inlca1 Psycho1ogy, 1972, 2:8, 171-1?2.

Boor, M. Test anxlety and classroom examinatlon performance:

A reply to Daniels and Hewltt. Journal of Clinlcal
Psychology, 1980, ~, 177-179.

Brown, W. Effectlve Study Test: Manual of directlons.

San Marcos, Tex.: Effective Study Materla1s, 1975.

Brown, W., & Holtzman, W.; Survey of Study Habits and

Attltudes. New York: 'Psycho1og1cal Corporation, 1956.
(
Brown, W., & Holtzman, W. Survey of Study Habits and
Attitudes manual. Ne~ Yor~: Psycho1ogica1 corporati0n,
. 1967.

Butterfleld, E.C. Locus of control, test anxiety, reactions

to frustration, and achievernent attitudes. Journal of
Persona1itY' 1964, E, 355.... 370.

Castaneda, A., McCand~ss,' B.R., & Palermo,D.S. The children's

forro of the Manitt'èst Anxlety Scale. . ;;;C..;;.ho..l_·l..:;..;.;d-"""D.. :;eo..v_e..;;.. :;;;l.. :;o.....p_m_e~n...;;.t,
1956, !:.l, 3p-326.

Cranton, P .A·., & Hillgar"tner, W. The relationshlps between

student ratlngs and instructor behavior; Implications
for irnproving teachlng. Canadian Journal of Hlgher ,
Education, 1981, ,11, 73-81. 1

I-
Cu1ler, R.E., & Holahan, C.J. Test anxle~y and acadernic
performance: The effects of study-re1ated behaviors.
l
Journal of Educational psychology, 1980, 72, 16-20.

Daniels, B., & Hewitt, J. Anxietyand classroom examination

performance. Journal of C1inical Psychology, 1978,
34, 340-345.

- ;...

. .
_ __ v/ __

101

Deffenbacher, JJL. Worry, emotlonality, and task-

generated ~nterference in test anxlety: An empirical
test of atkentional theory. Journal of Educational
Psychology, 1978, 2Q, a48-254.------------~~~~~~~

Deffenbacher, J.L., & Deitz, S.R. Effects of test anxiety

on performance, worry and emotionality in naturally
occurring exarns. Psychology ln the Schools, 1978,
~, 446-450.

Deffenbacher, J.L., Deltz, S.R., & Haza1eus, S.L. Effects

of humor and test anxlety on performance, worry and
ernotiona11ty in naturally occurrlng exarns. Cognitive
Therapy and Research, 1981, ~, 225-228.

Desiderato, O., & Koskinen, P. Anxiety, study habits and

academic achievement. Journal of Counseling
Psycho1ogy, 1969, li, 162-165.

Dollard, J., & Miller, N.E. Personality and psychotherapy.

New York: -McGraw-Hi11, 1950.

Doris, J., & Sarason, S. Test anxiety and blame assignrnent

in a fai1ure situation. Journal of Abnorma1 and
Social psycho1ogy, 1955, 50, 335-338.

Dowaliby, F.J., & Schumer, H. Teacher-centered versus

student-centered mode of co1lege classroàm instruction
as related ~o manifest anxiety. Journal of Educational,
Psychology, 1973, ii, 125-132.

Doyle, W. Classroom tasks and students' ~bilities. In

P.L. Peterson & H.J. Walberg (Ed's.). Research on
teaching: Concepts, findings, and imp1içations.
California: McCutchan Publishing Corporation, 1979. '.-

Dustin, D. Sorne effects of exam freiuency. Psychological

Record, 1971, ~, 409-414.
1
Fichten, C., & Adler, L. -"Examinatlon retest proc.edures:
Effects on performance, test anxiety and attitudes.
Irnproving College and University Teaching, 1977, ~,
247-250.

Fulkerson, F.E., & Martin, G. Effects of exam frequencyon

student performance, eva1uations of instructor, ~nd
test anxiety. Teaching of psycho1ogy, 1981, ~, 90-93.
!
Galassi, J.P."Frierson, H.T.,- & Sharer, R. Behav~'o
- of
high, moderate and low test-anx1.o,us students . ng an
actual test situatlon. Journal of Consulting an
Clinical Psychology, 1981, ~, 51-62.
.'''''

o
102

.,
Glaser, R. Sorne ~mpl~eatlôns of previous work on learnl.ng
and l.ndl. vidua1 d~fferences. In R. M. Gagné (Ed.).
Learnl.n<] and indiVldual dl.fferences. Columbus, Ohl.o:
Merr Hl Books, 1967.,

Grooms, R.R., & Endler, N.S. The effect of anxiety On

academic achl.evement. Journal of Educa t l.onal
.
'
psycholog~, 1960, ~,c 299-304 .

Janl.sse, M. J." Test anxiety and choiee of eval uation format

in universl.ty students. Psychology in the Schools,
1 97 3, l 0 , 3 5 0- 3 54 . }
- 1.
Kiesler, O.J. Sorne myths of psychotfherapy research and the
search for a paradigme psycho1o<]l.ca1 Bu11ètin, 1966,
.§2, 110-136. j

. Klrkland, K., & H01landsworth, J. G. ,Test anxl.ety, study -j

ski11s and academie performance. Journal of Co11ege
Student Personnel, 1979, ~, 431-'436.

Lau, S. Sorne correla tes of test anxiety. Acta Psycho1og ica ·1

Taiwanica, 1977, 12, 75-77. 1
,;
!
Levenson, H. Distinctions Wl. thin the concept of in térnal- l,
1
e:l$ternal contro 1: Development of a new seale.
{ Proceedings of the runerican Psychological Association,
l

1972, 259-260.

Llebert, R.M., & Morris, L.W. Cognitive and emotional

components of test anxièty: A distinction and sorne
initial data. Psychological Reports, 1967, ~, 92.:.?78.

Lin, Y.G., & McKeachie, W.J., Sex similar"'ity in personality

correlates of test anxi~,ty. Psychologica1 Répo;-ts,
1971, ~, 515-520.

Long, K. K., & Bessemer, D. W. An ana1ytical investi.2:~n

of instru~tions designed, to elici t test anxiety.
Psycholoi~cal'Reports, 1971, ~, 283-292.

Mandler, G. 1 & .Sarason, S. B. A study of anxiety and learlfl.ng.

Journal of Abnormal and Social psycho1ogy, 1952, '47,
,.. 166-173.

, 1
Marso, R. N. Classroom testing procedures, test anxiety
and achievement. Journal of Experimental Education,
.197 a '. 1! ' 54- 58 . '"
Martin, R., €r- ~eyers, j. Effects of anxiety pn quanti ty---of
examination preparation. psychology in the Schools,
-
1974, 11, 217-221-
.

;;
 103

May, R. The meaning of anxiety. New York: Norton, 1977.

McKeachie, W.J. Anxiety in the college classroom. Journal

of Educationa1 Research, 1951, i2, 153-160.

McKeachie, W.J., Pollie, D., & Speisman, J. Relieving

anxiety in classroom examinations. Journal of Abnormal
and Social psychology, 1955, 50, 93-98.

McMahon, M.P. Effects of knowledge of ab~l~ty test rèsults

-on academic 'performance and test anxiety. J01J,rnal of
Counseling Psychology, 1973, '~, 247-249.

Mil ton, O. Testing' and learn4-pg. Na tio~l Forùm: Phi Kappa

~
...
~Phi Journal, B080, ~r 14-16 .
•
~~rr~s, L.W., Davis, M.A., & Hutchings, C.H. Cognitive and
• emotional components of ·anxiety: Literature review
and a revised worry-emot~onal~ty scale. Journal of
Educational Psychology, 1981, li, 541-555.

Mowrer, O.H. A stimulus-respopse analysis of anxiety and

its role as a reinforcing agent. Psychological Review,
1939, ii, 553-565.

Nie, N.H.; Hull, C.H., Jenkins, J.G., Steinbfenner, K., &

, Bent, D. Ii. StatistiC'al Package for the Social Sciences
(2nd Ed.). New York: MOGraw-Hill, 1975.

Norman, D.A. Memory and attention. (2nd Ed.). New York:

. Wiley, 1976.
,
O'Neil, H.F., J,r., Spie1berger, C.D., & Hansen, D.H. Eff cts
of state anxiety and task difficulty on computer-
assisted learning. Journal of Educational Ps cholo
19'69, .§.Q., 343-350.

Paul, G.L., & Eriksen, C.W. Effects of test anxi~ty on

"real-life" examinations. JournFil of Persona1ity,
1964, 11, 480-494.

Peterson, P.L: Interactive effects of student anxiety,

achievement orientation, and teacher behavior on
student achievement and attitude. Journal of
Educational Psychology, 1977, ~, 779-792.

Peterson, P.L. Aptitude by treatment interaction effects

·of teacher structuring and ostudent -participation in
col1ege instruction. Journal of Educational-Psychology,
1979, 71, 521-533. __
- ~
 J
104

Phillips, B.N., Pitcher, G.D., Worsham, M.E., & Miller, S.C.

Test anxiety"a,nd the school environment. In 1. G.
Sarason (Ed.) ~~"lJ:1-éd~ a,nxîety: Theory, reseàrch and
applications. New Jersey: "Lawrence Erlbaum Associates"
Inc., 1980.

purdue Research Foundation. Item catalog. Lafayette,

, , Indiana: 1974.

Rosenberg, M. Soci~ty and the adolescent self-imaife.

Pr1nceton, N.J.: Princeton Un1versity Press, 1965.
:
j. Sarason, I.G. Experimental approaches to test anxiety:
Attention and the' uses of information. In C.D.
,_ Spielberger (Ed.). Anxiety: -Current trends in
Sheory and research. (Vol. "II). ,New York: Academic
Press, 1972.
\
1
Sarason, IiG. Te,t anxiety and ~he self-disclosing coping
,model!. Journal of Consulting and Cl inical psychology,
1 ~ 7 5 ,/ il, 14 8.-153 •
,
Sarason, 1. G. , 'l'he test anxiety scale: Concept and research.
In C.D. Spielberger & I.G. Sarason (Ed's.). Stress and
,~nxiety (Vol. 5). NeW' '(ork: Hemisphere/Wiley, 197 8.
} ( Sarason, i.d. Introduction to the stucly bf test anxiety.
In I.G. Sarason (Ed.J. Test anxiety: 'Theory, research
and a~plicatio~s. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum
AS,soc1ates, Inc., 1980.

Sarason, ,I.G. Test anXi~y,

stress~~and social support.
Journal of Personality, 1981, ~,101-114. ;

Saras~, I~G., & Ganzer, F.J. Anxiety,. re,inforcement, and

experimental instructions in à free verbalization
situation. Journal qf Aônormal and Social Psychology,
1962, ~, 300-307.

Sarason, l.G., Pederson, A., & Nyman, B. Test an~iety and

the observation of models. Journal of Personality,
1968, l.§., 493-51l.

, r
Sarason, I.G., & ~toops, R.
\
- Test anxiety and the passage
of time. Journal of Consulting and Clinical
Ps~chology, 1978, !§., 102-1'09.

Sarason, S.B., & Gordon, E.M. The test anxiety questionnaire:

Scoring norms. Journal of Abnormal ~nd Social Psycholpgy,
1953, i!, 447-44~.

"
,"
. .,'
 ....
~.

105

'Sarason, S.B~, &-~ Mandler, G. Sorne correlates of test

anxiety. Journal of Abnormal and Social psycho1ogy',
1952, .!l, 810-817. 1

Sarason, S.B., Mandler, ~., & Craighill, P. The effect

of differential' instr~ctions,on anxiety and 1earning.
4 Joûrnal of Abno):'mal and Social Psychol,ogy, 1952, !l,
'J 561-565. 0

Sieber, J.E. Defining test'anxiety: PrQblerns and approaches.

In l.G. Sarason (Ed.). Test anxiety: Theory, research
and applications. New Jersey: Lawr~nce Erlbaum
Associates, Inc., 1980.

Smith, H.C. Teamwork in the college class. Journal of

Educati'onal P S y'fi: ho logy , 1955, ~, 274-286.

Smith, W.F., & Rockett, F.C. Test performance as a function

of anxiety, instructor and instructions. Journal of
Educational Research, 1958, --..,.
52, 138-141.

Snyder, C.R., & Katahn, M. The relat~onship of state

anxiety, feedback and ongoing self-reported affect.to
, ,perfor~ance in cornplex verba~ learning. American
Jgurnal of Psychology, 1970, ~, 237-247.

Snyder, C.R., &~atahn, M. Comparison levelst test anxiety,

ongoing affect, and <complex verbal learning.
American Journal of Psychology, 1973, ~, 555-565.

Spence, K.W. ·A theory of ~motionally based drive (D) and

its relation to performance in simple learning
situations. American Psychologi~t, 1958, ~, ~31-141.

Spence, K.W.~ &' Taylor, J. ,Anxiety and strength of the

ues as determiners of the amount of eyelid conditioning.
Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1951, ~, 183-188.

Spence, J.T., & Spence, K.W. The motivational'çomponents

of manlfest anxiety:' Drive and drive stimuli. In
C. D. 'Spielberger (Ed.). An~iety and behavior. (Vol'. 1).
New York: Academie Press, 1966.
,P

Spielbergei, C.D. Theory and research on anxiety. ln

e. D. Spj,elberger (Ed.). Anxiety and behavior., (Vol. 1).
New York: Academie Press, 1966.,

Spielberger, C.D. Anxiety as an ~otional ~tate~ In C.D.

Spielberger (Ed.). Anxiety: Current trends in theory
and research.
(
Neo/ York: Academic Press, 1972.

.1 •

•
.,- •
l

106,

Spielberger, C. D. preliminar Professional ManuaJ/ fèr

the Test Anxiety Inventory.' Palo Alto, CalL ornia:
Consulting'psychologists Press, 1980. ,
Spielberger, C.D., Gonzalez, H.P., & Fletcher, T. Test' , 1
- i
anxiety reduction, learning stra~egies, and academic v
performance. In H.F. a'Neil (Ed.)~ Cogtiitive and l
affective learning strategies. New York: Academic
Press, 1979.
-,:--

Spielberger, C.D., Gonzalez, H.P., Taylor, C;.J., Algaze," B.,

'J & Anton, W.D. Examination stress and test anxiety. 1
In C.D. Spielbergér & l.G. Sarason (Ed's.). Stress
and anxiety. (Vdl. 5). Ne~ York: Hemisphere!Wiley,
1978.
Spie1berger, C.D., Gorsuch, R.L., & Lushene, R.E. T~e
State-Trait Anxi~ty Inventory (STAI): Test manual.
Palo'Alto; California: Consulting Psychologists Press,
1970.

Stanton, W.E. Relationship between teachers' anxiety 1evel

and,test anxiety level of their stupents. Psychology
in t'the Schoo1s, 1974, Il, 360-363.
i --
Taylor, 1Jo.A. The relationo&hip of anxiety to the cond.i:tl.oned
( eyelid response. - Journal of Experimenta'l psycho1ogy,
l 9 51, ,41, 81- 9 2 .

Taylor, J.A., - A personality~scale of rnanifest anxiety.

Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1953, ~~
>. 285-290. 1,
l
TObias, S. Anxiety research in educational psychology.
Journal of Educational Psychology, 1979, 2!, 573-582.
.....
!
-,
Wine, J. Test anxiety and direction of attention.
psychologic,:l Bull~tin, 1971, .7.!, 92-104.

Wine, J. Cognitive-attentional theory of test anxiety. In

l.G. Sarason (Ed.). Test anxiety: Theory; research 1
and aeplications. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum
Assocl.ates, Inc~, 1980.

Witkin, H.A., Dyk, R:B., Fatterson, H., Goodenough, D.R.,

& Karp, S.A. PSYChOlO~ical differe~tiation. New York:
John Wiley & Sons, 196 . ,

Wittmaier, B:C. Test anxiety and "study habits. Journal of

Educational Research, 1972, ~I 352-354.

. .
1
 107

Wittmaier, B.e. '"

Test anxiety, mood and pe'rformance. 1
Journal of Personality and' Social Psychology, 1974,
l2., 664-669.
Yerkes, R.M., & Dodson, J.D. The relation of strength of
stimulus to rapidity of habit formation. Journal of
Comparative Neuro1ogy and Psychology, 1908, ~,
45·9-4 8 2.
1
1·
i
1

1
c

_ é
 108

APPENDTX A

Instruments and Mat~rials

/ f
J

l
t

.'
'1
"

"

~ . ,.

..
'h
'
 •

TES T A TT 1 T U 0 E' 1 N VEN TOR Y

\

1. O. No. _r_ _ _---;-_ _

SEX M F
P~ESENT AGE _ _ _ __ • (

o 1 R E C T ION 5: A number of statements which people have used ta describe

themselves are given 5elow. Read each statement and then blacken in the appropriate
circle ta the right of the statement ta indicate how you generally feel. There are
no tïght ~r wrong answers. Co not spend too much time on any one statement 6ut give
the answer'which seems to describe how you generally feë1. A1though
,
you are asked
to give your 1.0. numéer; this is for research purposes only and your responses are
completely confidentia1. Your instructors will only rece;ve a sûmmary of the result9.

1. 1 feel,confident and relaxed wh;le taking.tests.

2. While ta~ing examinations 1 have an uneasy, ,upset feel'ing . .
3. Thinking'about my grade in a course interfèr.es with my work on '
tes ts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4. 1 freeze up on important exams . . . . • • . .
5. During exams 1 find myself thinking about whether I l.11 ever set
through sc hoo l . . . . .. ' . . .'. . . . . . . . . ... . . .
0'6. The harder 1 work at taking a tes t, the more c,onfu~ed. 1 get.
7. Thoughts of doing poorly interfere wHo my concentration on >

tests
,
.. . • . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . • . • CD CV '@ G)
'" 8. l feel very jittery when taking an important test. ®®{D0
~ . Even when 1 lm well prepared for a test, l feel very nervous .,
abou t i t • . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . .
,10. l start feeling very uneasy justiObefore getting a test paper
bac k ••. . .. • ~. • .. • . • • • • . . .. •
11. Dur'fng tests r feel very tense :
\

.
lover

-"
-
(
12. 1 wish examinations did not bother me 50 much. 0 Oc 0 • • •

13. Dur'ing important tests 1 am 50 tense that my stomach gets

upset . . . . . . . ~ . • . • . . . •
. .•....•.
~
.1.

14. 1 seem to defea t myse1 f whne working on important tests .

15. 1 fee1 very pan~cky when 1 take -an important test • . . . .
16. 1 worry a great dea1 Defore taking an important examination. ,
1
17. During tests 1 f,ind myse1f thinking a50ut the consequences of •
, fai·ling. " . . . . • . . . . . . . . . • . • . . . . . Œ@0C!l
18. 1 feel my heart 5eating very fàst during important tests .. (j)@G)@
19. After, an exam is over 1 try to stop worryiryg about it, but 1
. t 't 1 • (] @,0 @
20. ~~~in:a:xam~n~t;o~s'I 'g~t'~ ~e;v~~ ~h~tïl 'f~r~e~ ;a~t~ 1 . 'r

re a 11 y kn OW. • • .• • • • • • • .;. • • • • c ' • . ' . • • ,,' • • • • (D@@@)

21. While taking an-important exam 1 find myse1f thinking ff how

much brighter the other ,students. are t~an 1 am . . . . • (1)(j)@@
22. [).aring' course examinations 1 find mysel f thinking of things
( < ,
unrelated-to the actual course material . . . • • , . . • . • G)0®@
23. Getting a good grade on one test doesn't seem to increase
my confidence on the second. . .......... . CD 0
Q) GJ·
24. After tak..ing il tést 1 feel 1 could have done better than 1
.
actually did . . . • . • -. . . • • _ . • . • • . . . • .
25. 'When taking a test my emotional feelings don't seem to
,-
interfere with my performance . . . . . • • • • , ' y ' • ,
. ,

26. 1 would rather write a paper than take an examination for,my'

grade in a course. • . . . . . .• . ........... .
27. • 1 would do much better on tests if 1 did not fee1 pressured by"
a time 1imit . . . . . . . . . . .
28. On exams 1 ta ke the attitude t "If 1 don' t know it now there' s ,
no point worrying about it!" . • . . • . . ' • . . -. . . c'. . . CD@@)Œ;
29. 1 have difficulty seeing why people ~et sa upset 'about tests CD@(](!)
30...; 1 have trouble eating before an important test. . ... .O@@C!)

ï,

. 1
• 1
... 111
)
S T U 0 E~ T P E R CEP T ION S Q U"E S T r 0 N N ArR E

1.0. NO.
SEX M. F _ __
PRESENT AGE

INSTRUCTItlNS Ta STUQENTS:
.
As a part of a research study on students test
anxiety, we are concerned with.your perceptions of the instruction in this
1

classo Pleas~ read caref~liy each statement below and indicate the extent
.
to which you agree or ~isag.ree by circling the appropriate numbe'r. Although
.
_you_,a~e asked to g;ve your 1.0: number, this ;s for research purposes on1y

arld your re~ponses are completely confidential. Your ;nstructor will only
rece;ve a summary of the r~sults.

1. My instructor shows' 'enthusiasm when presenting cours~ .material .

2. My instructo'r relates to me as an individual . • . 0 0 •

3. My instrl;lctor encourages students ,to express opi ni ons. ' . .

4. My instructor appears open to new iqeas and the viewp~ints
of otfier!i •• . .
. . ,,". " " " " • • ••• • • • • • • • a_' 0:> ,@ G)@
5• My tn~tructor enconrages ~tudents to tfilnk for tbemselves in ~his
cour~e. • • • ." " " " " " " " " ." " " " " " \I) @ Q)~
, 6. My .
. instructor holds the attention of the class . . . . 0 • CD ,CP (D@
7. There has b~n considerable agreement betw-ee~ the an,no~nced
objectives
,
of this course and' what is being taught
8. l understand what is expected'of me in thi's course . .
90 The ifnstructor 1 s goa 1s for the course were made, cl ea,r to the
studénts . . . . • . . . . " . . . . . . • .' .' . .
10. The instructor clearly informed students of how the~ would be
eva l ua ted in the course

. . /over
"

!
, , , \
 l,'

11. My instructor' explains difficu1t materia1 c1early. ,

12. The instructar's use of examples helps ta get points across in ,
c1ass. ' • . . , . . . • . . . . . . . , . . . • . . . r ••
CD ® Cl)(})
13. The relationships among course topies are cl€arly explained. CD @ QG)'
14. The student has the opportunity to as/< questions in class, . CD @ Cl) Œ),
15. The instruetor raises ehallenging questions and problems for
di scuss ion. CD @' G@
16. My instructor spends most of the time lecturing. , , . . CD ® G)G)
17. There is sufficierit time in c1ass for student discussions, CD@G(j)
18. ,My instruetor summari zes the major' po ints of 1ectures . . CD ® 6)@
19. ,1 learn from t,he comments my ;nstructur gives on exams . CD ® G)@
20. My instructor is readily availab1e for consultation with students
outside of'class . • . , , . , . . , .
21. My instructo~ provides useful feedback on student assignments . . ,
22. My instructor tailors this course ta help al1 kinds of students
(
, ç 1earn. . . , . • . . . ...,.. . . . . . . . . . . . . .'" .
23. My instructor is actively helpful Wilen,
, l'
students have prob1 EmS
in cl as s . , . . . . . . . . , . , , , . . . , . , .
..
CD @ G)@
24. The instruetor appears to be interested in teaehing. G) ~ Œ(!)"
25. My instruetor's c1ass presentations make
o
for easy note taking, CD'@. Ψ
26. The i nstructor t'akes appropri? te action when students appear

v
te be bored.. .' . . .\, . . . . . . . . • , . . . . . . . Û) cg) G)Œt
27. 1 1 ike the way the instructor conduds this course . . . . . d) @ G)@
,28. TMs course has giv~n me a good understanding of e
t~e subject·. '~,~ (j)0~!
')1
STUDY HABITS
: /' 1
29. Compared te other students"'in the class, 1 am usually more likely
, '

ta ask for. extensions on assfgl11lents . . '• . ,. • . " .. Q) (3) Q) (!)

30. When given an assigl'1llent that 1 am unel ear about, 1 wi 11 ask
the instructor for clarification. • . . . . .. .,
31. Compared ta,other students in the class, 1 fee1 1 have to 'study
more for exams

1
1 ,. ., , .•. /over,
1
 ~ 113
!VI
-4
Z o
lT1 .."
< ~
lT1 lT1
~ Z

32. l feel tfiat tfie amount of ti:me r study 1S effecttve. . ...

1
1
33.
34.
l "flQd myself cramming the nigflt] De fore tfle test. .
l am able ta plan fpr tests Dy spac;ng out my studying before an.
. .' . .
ffi85ffiffi
35.
exam . .
As much as l study, r feel ft doesn1t h~lp . _ ..
ffiffiffiffi
• BACKGROUND INFORMATION

For tflese items, please respond ta the fallowing sca)e:

l.
2.
Strangly Oisagree (SO)
,\Disagree (0) \
.
3.
4.
Agree CA)
,Strongl y Agree (SA)
ci
SO 0 A SA
36. ~ared ta other course~ l have taken, course i sone Qf

37.
the more difficult ones . . . . • . . . •
The workload in this course ;s'less tha
/
tha tin other courses r'
G@0G'
have taken . . . . . . . . . . . 0)@00-
38. In arder ta assist this research woul al10w access t~your
~rade pOint averages?

\.

1
 114
INSTRUCTOR SELF-PI!RCEPHONS qUESTIONNAIRE

As a part of a research study on studer}ts,1 test anxiety, we are

concerned with your perceptions of the instruction in .lI0ur c1ass.
1
Please
read carefully eacn statement oe10w and indiéate the extent to which you
agree or disagree oy circ1 ing the app'ropriate numoer.

r'
<:::) :>
.." r
-4 3:
r'T'1 0
:z Vl
-i
J>
r
2:
J>
-<
Vl

1. fee1 that 1 show enthusiasm when presenting course materia1. l 2 3 4

2. I fee1 that 1 relate ta students as individua1s. " , ,;., . • 1 2 3 4
3. encourage students ta express opinions 2 3 4
1 fee1 tflat 1 am open to new ideas and the viewpoints of others. 2 4
5. 'r encourage students ta thinf<. for toemse1ves in tht.s course. 2 3 4
6. r am aBle to oa1d the attention of the class 2 3 4
7. There nas Been cons i deraél e agreement between the 'announced
'(
. oBjectives of the course and what is oeing taught, , . 2 3 '4
8. Students understand what 1S expected of them in this course. 2 3 4
, .,
9." My"goa1, for the course were made c1ear ta the students. 2 3 4
la. I c1ear1y infarmed students of how they #Ould ~eva1ua,ted in
the cours e . .. ... . . 2 :S. 4
11 . 1 explain difficult material c1ear1y . , 234
12. 1 use exampl~s ta ne1p get points across in c1as's. 2 3 4
13. 1 cl early exp1ain th\ rel ationshi ps among c?urse tapies. 1 2 3 4
14. give students the opportunity to ask questions in'c1ass, 1 2 3 4
15. fee1 1 raise chal1enging questions and prab1ems for discussion ,~l ~ 2 3 4
-;.

16. spend mO.st of the time lecturing .. . 1 .2 3 4

•
17. give sufficient time in class for student discussions, 1 2 3 4
18. 1. sunmarize the major points of 1 ectures .. ," 234
19. 1 am readil y avail ab 1e for consul tation with students outs; de of
~

c1ass. . . . 1 2 3 4
20. 1 provide usefu1 feedback on student assignments ,1 2 3 4

, , .lover
 ,,,y~/,

115
, , > V'I 0 )::>
r--
~
ï ."
,.,., :3:
~
Toi
r""I 0
,Vl -t
..,... :z .....
'..11
-l
3:
:z r""I ;p
.... l'Tl V'I r-
< ~
l'Tl :>
::0 -<
2l. l feel that l am actively be 1 pful Il/hen students have proD lems V'I

in class. . , . . . . 2 3 4
22. r feel tha t l ta ilor the course to he 1p all kind's of students
l earn . . . . ./ . . . "
2 3 4
23. r feel that l show an i nteres tin my teacb i ng 2 3 4
24. My presentation styl e perm; ts students to take notes eas.i1 y 2 3 4
25. l take appropriate action when students appear éore.ti1. 2 3 4

- -- -
!
/

/.
/
l'

'. ,
 !

,- •
-
~

Observat1on Check11st

1\

"p:. JlItS lJ~

·DC!lS'oI\iIl -!C"'••. ·~Cd.. Je -orshit. ~~r'Its';k"(CI C?I$~' - .arI!I:JICrtdi-H~ ir''''ù.,~\[rl,~~~AFt
7.
~
,'(:qLecfl&
-.fClP'1 t. .:1: eO'Ouf. ·:!trwo.trla .ptQi QI\t"",",
-S~ -~!,,~n ·...-,ct, 'o~.".. $.J"t«uJ Ll..~ ,~
_t
-op"'.O'lS r-- L-' se c:;-
·n::~A.V, -c._cl. .9'''.'4\.1011- :~~ :I __ p C-u.

l'
--"'
•
1 :~ 1 1 .'
" _~5
- 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
1-

, .
.1 f 1 0

--1
3.30
3.45
-4.00 1 •

4.'5'
4.;c

""
~I
4.451
5': 00'
1·
1 "
1î
Il
1 1 1 r 1 1 1 1
.f
1
f-'
f-'
(J)

,.
nau' Sil ~ 'taM"*'?ttttdHWœr1 'M .. pt t 'l'Wd'..........: . . . . . .W't;d br ... ~~ ... I,.a . '..... M ..,...... ~·t t(!Ii&..~••M,. .......,;b"C........ ;%'!?mtt tttt, .. ,~kt""'~~.w.&rbt·Vrt *,.. A":.:r:tSr?t1ninmt1ll4~'f'Wtê<i./f;i!tII<..*. bN'te,.fll!lfii_iIW5fWt Q'tJà"t'z'<' fer 1
 117

Description of Categories*

1. Data Lecturing: giving facts or opinions about content;

expressing onels own ideaSi asking
rhetorical questions; includes
problem solving.

2. Data A.V.: presenting data'with the ard of aUd~

visual materials. Includes using "!
the blackboard.

3. Data Illustration: illustrating data with personal '

anecdotes, real case presentàtions
aqd role playing.

4. Data Linking: in presenting data, using the specifie ~.

skills of generalizing (re1ating

content to other academic disciplines
and ~dent~fying connect~ons be~een
concepts) or summarizing (revlewing
data) or provid~ng connections between
student interest and the data.

5. Management administrative tasks; statements or

questions dealing with schedules, 0
", dead1ines, reading lis'ts, etc:
Includes the act of handing out or
cOllecting materials; giving quizzes
?r wr~tt~n exercises.
6. Structuring: conGact~ng .c;tnd organizing the class
in regard to cont;nt and procedure.
Includes brief1y summarizing past
materia1 and activities, setting ,
objectives, and giving commands and
directions to be followed.

* From Cranton & Hillgartner (1981)

1 . è
!
 118

7. Silence: pauses, short periods of silenc~:

Indicates confusion or laughter when

s~ored simultaneously)with another
category.

8. Questions: asking a question about content ~ith

the intent that someone answer.

~. "A'i'scuss ion: encouraging or facilitating interaction

and discussion between ,students. For
, 1 "
example, asking class members to
respond: to\a student's comment.

10. Clarifying: sta t'ements and questions by the

.
instructor designed to encourage œ
student to elaborate an idea or
question initiated by the student.
Includes paraphrasing which attempts
(
to clarif~ another point of view.

Il. Crediting: praising ideas, performance or work

'patterns.

12. Criticizing: direct or indirect criticizing, in a

destruct~ve lflanner, of ideas',
performance or work patterns.

13. Deman!: making a de~ana for work. Includes

constructive criticism and insisting
on focus.

14. Monitoring: calling attention ,to process in order

to id~ntify and explore blocks or
potential blocks to effe.ctive çlass-'
room work. !ncludes periodically
checking ~or attention, ~ompr~hension,
etc.
,

1
..
 '~
119

15. Affect: clarifying the fe~ling

. of others
in the classroom. Offering one's
own'feelings. Fee~ings rnay b~
positive or negative. Include~

predicting o~ r~calling feelin~s.

, \ '

Note: Categories 2 and 15 wer~ not included in the present

investigati,on. 1 Category 1.3 was also placed wi th in
Category 6. Further, the investigator forrnulated
the following rnodified -categories:

a) 'Instructor-initiated questions by the instructor

1 questions and discussion

(from Categor~es 8 & 9)
about the content as ~ell as
discussion-oriented questions--
these questiOns may have
encouraged , or f~cilitated
interaction and discussion
within the class.
- , ,"
b) Direct student
\
questions: questions, initiated by studen~s;
t ,,1

and directed to the instructor;

th'ese qu~~tions ar,e usually
about the content or other , ,
.cl~ssroom details.

It is worth noting that not aIl of'these categories appeared

in the'classroom observations;
~ , however, this list represents'
t~e g;u~delines for the obs·ervational system used in the
{... ",

present study.·
 ,;

" ,

120

(
/
\
\

\
i
lP' " ... l1

{ \
• ,

,
...

APPENDrX B
, .
( Factor .Ana1ysis Resu1ts

. ,

,
IJ'I 1

j~
, f

/
,
:
i
1:
( i
,j' .
l'
1

l '

.
,
 /
.;
121 1
Rotated Facto~ Matrix: Test Anxiety Sça1e

Item 'Faétor 1* Factor 2**

1 .76 .03
2 .73 .20
.3
4
.30
.33
.64
.70
1
5 .12 0-58
6 .20 .55
7 .46 .37,"
8 . 80 .18
9" .73 . 20
10 ' .73 .09
11" .68 . 28
12 .66 .23
13 .53 .52
14 .18 .53

/'\ .71 .32 :

15
16
17
.74
.21
.10
.73
)
18 " 68 .13
19 '\ .29 '.24

\ 2Q
21
22
.63
.'25
- .17 .
.48
.81
.55
23 -l .40 • 19
24 .4"4 .32
25 -.06 .46
26 .13 .15
27 .32 -.06
28 .30 .23
~li \~Q 29 .19 .22 •
,
1

30 ~ 21 .70
-
Factor Eigenvalue Percent of Variance i
1
l 9.99 33.30
.'
2 2.71 9.00 Î
.
*emotionali ty
** worry

, ,

'"
 "

122

Rota:ted Factor Matrix: Perception Questionnaire

(

Item Factor 1* Factor 2** Factor 3***

1 .64 .61 .00

2 .73 .31 -.00
3 .09 .20 .74
~ (,
4 .66 -.27 .33
5 .35 -.02 .69
6 .~9 .55 .13
7 · 1 .19 · 03
· ~5
8 .32 .13
9 .76 .31 -.10
10 -.11 -.02
'Il. o6i
.8 .26 .27
12 .8 .08 .04
13 ·7 .16 .36
14 .07 -.39 .35
15
16 ' \
.08
-.02 • .21
.05 "
.73
.73
17 .06 .81 :,23
18 .32 .63 .22
19 .54 . .33 .3~
20 .42 . 75 · 06
( '21 .4~ .51 .2/1
22 · 6,':! .07 .22
23 .75 .39 .21
24 .70 .35 .18 ,
25 .46 .27 , .' 30 i
1
26 .83 .37 .17 " "l
27 ;, ., .72 .50 · 20
,, ,
.
Fa'ctor Eigenvalue Percent of Variance
1
l' 12.55 46.50 1·
1
2
3
2.30
1. 94
1.
8.50
7.20
L
,
1::.
1
!
* generài presentation skil1
- ** structure
*** discussion
 - - - - - - - - - -.....1'>.'.-

123
..

Rotated Factor ~atr~x: Study Habit Items

, Item Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3

1 .03 -.45 .53

2 -.17 .38, .77

,
3 -.19 .15 -.60

4 .17 .78 .01

5 .,84 -.13 .16

6 .91 .10 -.06

"'
7 -.21 .78 -.06

Factor Eig~nva1ue Percent of Variance

1 }..84 ;26.30
\
2 1. 49 21.30
:3 1. 24 17.80

. ,.;.

L •
- \
~---- -----,

124

, -,
\
!
. i
1

j
l

.' !
, 1

f
APPENDIX C
( Frequencies
1
1 ~,'. 1

...

<,
 -------.\'.

125
"

, '

1
CLASS 1 CLASS 2
VarÏable (frequenc~es) (frequenc ~es)
(out of N::.23) (Qut of N::17)
J
. High 8 6
E Medium 8 5
,
Law

High 7
7
, 6

r
w Medium ·9 9,
Law . 7
,
7

High 15 "2
Perfac 1 Meà~um 7 6
Low 1 9

High 10 4
Perfac 2 Medium 13 4 .-
Low 0 9

High 7 7
Perfac 3 Medium 8 3
Low 8 " 7

High 4 6
Shfac 1 MedIum' 9 8
Low 10 3

High (~""> ' 7 6

Shfac 2 Medium 10 6
Low 6 5
f'>
H~gh 9 4
Shfac 3 Medium 6 7
Low 8 6

High 14, l
SA Medîum 9 7
Low o- 9

Leg:end: E (emotiona1i ty)

1 W (worryl
1 Perfac l (general ~resentat+on skill)
Perfac 2 (structure)
Perfac 3 (discuss ion)
Shfac l (study habits factor 1)
Shfac 2 (study habits factor 2)
Shfac 3 (study habits factor 3)
SA (student achievement)