The Prevalence and Effects of Test Anxiety in School Children

What is test anxiety?

Emotional reactions typically accompany situations where our performance is being measured

or assessed. If at any stage of an evaluation we feel unprepared, unsure of our ability, or feel we

have not performed to our best, we may experience feelings of unease, apprehension, distress

or depression

Anxious states are characterised by excessive degrees of fear, worry and apprehension

Consistent associations between neuroticism or trait anxiety and test anxiety have been

demonstrated (e.g. Cox, 1962; Sarason, 1959), with trait anxiety being identifed as the best

predictor of test anxiety by Hodge et al. (1997).

As test anxiety is primarily a concern over negative evaluation, it is most closely associated with

the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-IV (DSM-IV: American Psychi- atric Association (APA),

1994) classication of `social phobia.

Social phobias are characterised by `a marked and persistent fear of social or performance

situations in which embarrassment may occur. (APA, 1995, p. 422. To be diagnosed as suffering

from a social phobia, DSM-IV states that the individual must:

o show an immediate anxiety response when exposed to the feared social or perform-

ance situation;

o show attempts to avoid the social or performance situation, or sometimes endure it but

with extreme fear;

o experience a signicant disruption to normal activities due to the avoidance or fear

associated with the situation;

o have experienced the symptoms persistently for at least six months.