Test anxiety is a combination of physiological over-arousal, tension and somatic symptoms together with worry, dread, fear of failure and catastrophizing that occurs before or during test situations, creating a significant barrier to learning and performance; highly test-anxious students score about 12 percentile points below their low-anxiety peers. It has been studied formally since the early 1950s, beginning with researchers George Mandler and Seymour Sarason and continued by Seymour's brother Irwin G. Sarason, who helped clarify how test anxiety relates to other focused and generalized forms of anxiety. Between roughly 25 and 40 percent of students experience test anxiety, with students with disabilities and students in gifted programs experiencing especially high rates; researchers attribute the resulting drop in performance not to poor preparation but to a sense of threat that disrupts attention and memory during the test itself.
Facts
Core ClaimAnxiety-produced interference between task-relevant and irrelevant responses, not a lack of ability, is what causes high-anxiety test takers to underperform. 1 FAQs
Does test anxiety mean a student did not prepare well enough?
No. Researchers link it to a sense of threat that disrupts attention and memory, not to weak preparation.
Not according to researchers. Poorer performance is attributed not to intellectual problems or poor academic preparation, but to the sense of threat that testing situations create for people with test anxiety. That sense of threat then disrupts attention and memory. Researchers suggest that between 25 and 40 percent of students experience test anxiety, and that students with disabilities and students in gifted education classes tend to experience high rates of it. Students who experience it often report blanking out even though they have studied sufficiently for the test.
Sources
1. Test anxiety (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationReferences list, Mandler and Sarason citation
Mandler, G.; Sarason, S. B. (1952). 'A study of anxiety and learning'. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 47 (2): 166-173.
Theories section, interference theory
The feelings of forgetfulness, or drawing a 'blank' are developed because of anxiety-produced interference between relevant responses and irrelevant responses generated from the person's anxious state.
In Group: Emotion, Anxiety and Wellbeing in Learning, Lead
Test anxiety is a combination of physiological over-arousal, tension and somatic symptoms, along with worry, dread, fear of failure, and catastrophizing, that occur before or during test situations.
View the Source Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.