Exploring Cross-Cultural and Gender Differences in Test Anxiety Among U.S. and Canadian College Students

Abstract

Existing measures of test anxiety used with the college student population are old with old norms and old items, and they do not capture the multiple dimensions of the test anxiety construct or assess facilitating anxiety. In the present study, the validity of the scores of a new, multidimensional measure of test anxiety with a facilitating component, the Test Anxiety Measure for College Students (TAM-C) was examined in a sample of 1,344 Canadian and U.S. college students. Tests of measurement invariance were performed across culture and gender on the TAM-C and cultural and gender differences were explored. The results of multigroup confirmatory factor analyses across culture and gender supported strong invariance on the TAM-C. Latent mean analyses were also conducted and cultural and gender differences were found on the TAM-C. Although additional research is needed, the TAM-C appears to be a promising new measure for use with Canadian and U.S. college students.

Cross-National Comparison between U.K. and U.S. Higher Education Students in Test Anxiety

“…Overall, the findings indicated that the test anxiety construct is psychometrically equivalent across U.K. and U.S. higher education students and males and females on the TAM-C. These findings are similar to the results reported from other cross-national comparisons between U.S. and Australia undergraduate students (Lowe, 2019b) and U.S. and Canadian undergraduate students on the TAM-C (Lowe, 2019a). Moreover, these findings support the use of the TAM-C measure with U.K. students and the same test score interpretation for male and female undergraduate students from the United Kingdom and the United States on the TAM-C.…”

“…Past research has found that females report more test anxiety than males on instruments used to assess the test anxiety construct in many different countries around the world (Zeidner & Matthews, 2005). Moreover, these differences appear as early as elementary school (Lowe, Grumbein, & Raad, 2011;Zeidner, 1998) and continue to be reported through the undergraduate and graduate school years (Chapell et al, 2005;Hembree, 1988;Hojat et al, 1999;Lowe, 2018aLowe, , 2019a. Different explanations have been proffered for the differences in anxiety, including the way individuals are socialized (Schaefer, Watkins, & Burnham, 2003;Sutton & Farrall, 2005) and neurobiological differences (Lewinsohn, Gotlib, Lewinsohn, Seeley, & Allen, 1998).…”

Effects of Response Format on Psychometric Properties and Fairness of a Matrices Test: Multiple Choice vs. Free Response

“…Test anxiety, defined as the tendency to extreme fear of being rated negatively in upcoming tests (Zeidner, 1998), has been acknowledged as a major disruptive factor for academic careers: severe test anxious pupils and students often failed in tests and achieved lower mean grades than less test anxious ones (Hembree, 1988;Zeidner, 1998;Von der Embse et al, 2013;Stenlund et al, 2018). Several studies reported sex differences in test anxiety (e.g., Putwain and Daly, 2014;Núñez-Peña et al, 2016;Lowe, 2019) and it has been identified as a source of bias for underperformance in standardized testing (as reviewed by Zeidner, 1998;McDonald, 2001). Taking different response formats into account, it seems easier for test takers to identify a solution by selecting it compared to constructing it.…”

The influence of personality factors, value appraisals, and control appraisals on cognitive test anxiety

“…University students routinely encounter emotional stressors that can have both immediate and long‐lasting implications for their overall academic success. One of the most common affective responses experienced by learners is anxiety caused by internal or external pressure to perform—commonly referred to as test anxiety or evaluation anxiety (Cassady & Johnson, ; Gerwing, Rash, Allen Gerwing, Bramble & Landine, ; Lowe, ). The topic of test anxiety has captured the attention of psychological and educational researchers as well as educational practitioners because of empirical evidence demonstrating a strong negative association between test anxiety and performance on tasks requiring the storage and manipulation of complex information (Hembree, ; von der Embse, Jester, Roy, & Post, ).…”