Effect of Anxiety on Verbal and Mathematical Examination Scores

Abstract

A bitter complaint of some students who take college entrance tests is that the tests are taken under such conditions of pressure that it is impossible for them to show their best work. The primary aim of this research was to learn about the emotional states aroused in students at the time of college entrance testing and to obtain estimates of the effect of these states on test scores and on the validity of the test. It is important also to consider the question of how to heighten desirable emotional states and how to avoid undesirable ones. Although no attempt was made in this experiment to alter the subjects' reactions, it was felt that a first step would be taken toward doing this by asking students what they become anxious about and by obtaining information on what groups of students are most strongly affected by the pressures put on them by an examination. It was thought, for example, that in some people fear of failure may facilitate preparation for a test, may key a person up to unusual effectiveness during the test, or may inspire great effort to obtain high grades in college. On the other hand, for other people fear of failure might have an inhibiting effect on any or all of these.

Anxiety, physiologically and psychologically measured: Its effects on mental test performance

“…The lack of significant difference in performance among treatment groups with varying degrees of anxiety-producing instructions indicates that test performance was not affected by anxiety-relevant directions, ie., test performance was robust for a wide span of directions that would seem to be anxiety-relevant. Other related experimental studies (Allison, 1970;French, 1962;Paul & Erickson, 1964) also have reported a lack of significant differences between treatment groups when an experimental rather than a correlational methodology was employed. It is possible that anxiety within the range induced by test situations does not affect test performance.…”

Test Anxiety and the Americans With Disabilities Act

“…Even if the relationship between TA and test performance were strong and reliable, it is still just a correlation. As French (1962) observed in a classic article, “Evidence that anxiety is usually found to accompany low test scores proves nothing about the part that anxiety plays in bringing about the low scores” (p. 555). It may be that poor exam preparation causes both anxiety and low performance; alternatively, it may be poor performance that causes the anxiety rather than vice versa.…”

Research on Validity Theory and Practice at ETS

“…In their efforts to develop measures of various traits, ETS researchers have examined many potential sources of irrelevant variance, including anxiety (French 1962;Powers 1988Powers , 2001, response styles (Damarin and Messick 1965), coaching (Messick 1981b(Messick , 1982aMessick and Jungeblut 1981), and stereotype threat (Stricker 2008;Stricker and Bejar 2004;Stricker and Ward 2004). Messick (1975Messick ( , 1989 made the evaluation of plausible sources of irrelevant variance a cornerstone of validation, and he made the evaluation of construct-irrelevant variance and construct underrepresentation central concerns in his unified model of validity.…”