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Principles of Health: Anxiety and Stress

Test Anxiety

by Sarah E. Boslaugh

Test anxiety, also known as evaluation anxiety, is a condition characterized by apprehension and distress in the context of a test or other evaluation. Although test anxiety is most commonly discussed with reference to school testing situations, the same principles can apply to athletic performance or any other occasion when a person feels threatened or pressured by the need to do well on a task. Some theorists differentiate between appropriate anxiety, which may occur when a person is not prepared to perform a task well, and anxiety that prevents a person from accessing learned information or behaviors they are capable of in a testing situation.

Overview

Although test anxiety has been studied since the 1950s, it has become a touchstone subject the United States with the growth of high-stakes testing, such as that required by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. In particular, some educators argue that putting children into high-stress situations causes them unnecessary anxiety and interferes with their ability to accurately display their knowledge on the tests. However, evidence for this assertion remains largely anecdotal, and few studies have tried to differentiate between cause and effect.

A group of students take an exam (photo courtesy of Amuzujoe)

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Test anxiety is distinct from trait anxiety because it only occurs in particular circumstances. However, like trait anxiety, test anxiety is usually considered to have two components, one mental and one physical. The mental component, sometimes called worry, includes difficulty in reasoning and in recalling information. While the physical component includes aspects of the fight-or-flight response, such as increased heart rate and blood pressure, which may interfere with cognitive processing. Some theorists also include a third component, social humiliation, meaning the fear of being negatively evaluated by others. Many studies of anxiety and performance described some anxiety may be necessary to perform one’s best, but too much anxiety may interfere with performance.

Most studies of test anxiety have been correlational—for instance, lower intelligence quotient (IQ) correlated with higher test anxiety—so that it is not possible to say which factor causes the other, or if there is a causal relationship between them. High test anxiety is common with external locus of control (the feeling that events are cause by factors outside one’s personal control), poor study skills, being female, and being a member of a racial or ethnic minority group.

Early interventions for test anxiety typically use techniques such as systematic desensitization (i.e., training a person to produce a relaxed rather than aroused response in the presence of a threatening stimulus [the test]). However, often relaxation training reduces test anxiety while failing to improve test performance, and today many interventions combine anxiety reduction techniques with study techniques intended to raise academic performance. This approach focuses on both of the possible causes for anxiety—fear of the testing situation itself, and the accurate realization that one is not prepared for the test.

References

1 

Dalkiran, E., H. . Baltaci, Z. Karatas, and Z. Nacakci. “Developing of Individual Instrument Performance Anxiety Scale: Validity-Reliability Study.” International Journal of Assessment Tools in Education, vol. 1, no. 1, 2014, pp. 13–25.

2 

Gharib, Afshin, William Phillips, and Noelle Mathews. “Cheat Sheet or Open-Book? A Comparison of the Effects of Exam Types on Performance, Retention, and Anxiety.” Psychology Research, vol. 2. no. 8, 2012, pp. 469–78.

3 

Hall-Flavin, Daniel K. “Is It Possible to Overcome Test Anxiety?” Mayo Foundation. Mayo Clinic, 10 Oct. 2014.

4 

Hannon, Brenda. “Test Anxiety and Performance-Avoidance Goals Explain Gender Differences in SAT-V, SAT-M, and overall SAT Scores.” Personality and Individual Difference, vol. 53, no. 7, 2012, pp. 816–20.

5 

Lowe, Patricia A., and Rebecca P. Ang. “Cross-Cultural Examination of Test Anxiety among US and Singapore Students on the Test Anxiety Scale for Elementary Students (TAS-E).” Educational Psychology, vol. 32, no. 1, 2012, pp. 107–26.

6 

Paul, Annie Murphy. “Relax: It’s Only a Test.” Tim, vol. 181, no. 5, 2013, pp. 43–45.

7 

Peters, Daniel B. “Managing Test Anxiety in Today’s High Stakes Testing Era.” TheHuffingtonPost.com, The Huffington Post, 30 Apr. 2015.

8 

Putwain, D. W., and W. Symes. “Achievement Goals as Mediators of the Relationship between Competence Beliefs and Test Anxiety.” British Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 82, no. 2, 2012, pp. 207–24.

9 

Segool, N. K., et al. “Heightened Test Anxiety among Young Children: Elementary School Students Anxious Responses to High-Stakes Testing.” Psychology in the Schools, vol. 50, no. 5, 2013, pp. 489–99.

10 

Weiner, Brittany A., and John S. Carton. “Avoidant Coping: A Mediator of Maladaptive Perfectionism and Test Anxiety.” Personality and Individual Differences, vol. 52, no. 5, 2012, pp. 632–36.

11 

Zeidner, Moshe. Test Anxiety: The State of the Ar. Plenum, 1998.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Boslaugh, Sarah E. "Test Anxiety." Principles of Health: Anxiety and Stress, edited by Lindsey L. Wilner & Megan E. Shaal, Salem Press, 2020. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=POHAnxiety_0020.
APA 7th
Boslaugh, S. E. (2020). Test Anxiety. In L. L. Wilner & M. E. Shaal (Eds.), Principles of Health: Anxiety and Stress. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Boslaugh, Sarah E. "Test Anxiety." Edited by Lindsey L. Wilner & Megan E. Shaal. Principles of Health: Anxiety and Stress. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2020. Accessed October 22, 2025. online.salempress.com.