The Role of Test Anxiety in Attention Bias to Test Threats in Undergraduates: The Influences of Temperamental Effortful Control and Frontal EEG Asymmetry

Test anxiety is a prevalent stressor which negatively impacts academic performance in evaluative situations. Previous literature has shown that attention biases (AB) to threats are implicated with general anxiety. However, few studies have examined the effect between AB to relevant threats (i.e., testing threats) and test anxiety. This study addressed previous gaps by examining whether temperamental effortful control and frontal EEG asymmetry (FA) impacted the relation between an exogenous AB to test threats and test anxiety in undergraduate students. A dot-probe task with test threat words as the target was given to the students. Paired-sample T tests show the presence of an AB to test threats in the endogenous (i.e., 500ms) condition but not in the exogenous (i.e., 250ms) condition. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that right FA modulated the positive relation between AB to test threats with test anxiety and positive relation between test anxiety with AB to test threats. Attentional control negatively predicted test anxiety but not the AB to test threats. AC and IC did not significantly interact with either test anxiety or AB to test threats in predicting the other (i.e., test anxiety predicting AB to test threats and vice-versa). A four-way interaction indicated that greater test anxiety predicts a stronger AB to test threats for those with right FA, low AC, and high IC. This four-way interaction result was conservatively considered due to the risk of overfitting. Results suggest the need to include FA in future studies of AB to test threats.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Department dc:contributor.department

Psychology

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Zerrouk, Mohamed

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Bell, Martha Ann

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Diana, Rachel A.
• Kim-Spoon, Jungmeen
• Hoffman, Kurt A.

• attention bias
• test threats
• test anxiety
• effortful control
• FA

Statement dc:rights

• Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:41115

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/120925