Confidence in Academic Testing: The Effect of Induced Checking and Anxiety on University Students' Emotional Responses to, and Performance in, Academic Challenge

Academic tests such as the American College Testing (ACT), Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), and National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) have been used to assess academic aptitude. Research suggests that both test anxiety and test emotions (positive and negative) influence academic performance. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of test anxiety and uncertainty (i.e., re-checking items) on performance and test emotions. It was hypothesized that induced checking and participant anxiety would negatively predict performance and positive testing emotions, and positively predict negative testing emotions. It was also hypothesized that induced checking and anxiety would interact, with anxiety levels affecting performance and emotion more strongly when induced checking occurs (compared to a control condition). A sample of (<em>N </em>= 332) participants completed the Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI) (Spielberger, 1980), the Academic Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ) (Pekrun, Goetz, & Frensel, 2005), and completed a 10-item reading comprehension assessment taken from the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2017). Participants were randomly assigned to a check or no check condition, in which they were or were not given prompts to check answers periodically throughout the academic assessment.. Results of multiple regression analyses suggest that test anxiety acted as a predictor for academic test performance, and positive and negative test emotions as hypothesized. The interaction was marginally significant, suggesting that anxiety predicted increased negative test emotions, and this effect may be exacerbated for participants assigned to the checking condition.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science (MS)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Year dc:date.available

2018

Author dc:creator

• Bruner, Elijah

Contributors dc:contributor

• Tonya Buchanan
• Terrence J. Schwartz
• Kara Gabriel

• Anxiety
• Checking
• Performance
• Academics
• Test emotions
• Experimental Analysis of Behavior
• Social Psychology

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/etd/938

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.cwu.edu:etd-1973