J. EDUCATIONAL COMPUTING RESEARCH, Vol.

42(2) 161-171, 2010

EFFECTS OF ONLINE TESTING ON STUDENT EXAM

PERFORMANCE AND TEST ANXIETY

JEFFREY R. STOWELL
DAN BENNETT
Eastern Illinois University, Charleston

ABSTRACT
Increased use of course management software to administer course exams
online for face-to-face classes raises the question of how well test anxiety
and other emotions generalize from the classroom to an online setting. We
hypothesized that administering regular course exams in an online format
would reduce test anxiety experienced at the time of the exam and improve
exam scores. We recruited 69 participants from a psychology course to take
classroom- and online-delivered exams, using a counterbalanced crossover
design. We found that students who normally experience high levels of test
anxiety in the classroom had reduced test anxiety when taking online exams,
while the reverse was true for those low in classroom anxiety. Furthermore,
the relationship between test anxiety and exam performance was weaker in
an online setting than in the classroom. We recommend that instructors
evaluate the potential impact of these findings when considering offering
examinations online.

Enrollment in online courses is increasing almost exponentially, with more than

20% of all United States college students enrolled in at least one online course
(Allen & Seaman, 2008). One outcome of this is that an increasing number of
students are taking course exams online. Furthermore, instructors of traditional
face-to-face courses are turning to online testing because it is convenient for
scheduling purposes, saves time grading, costs less than paper and pencil
exams, automatically enters grades (see Alexander, Bartlett, Truell, & Ouwenga,

161

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doi: 10.2190/EC.42.2.b
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162 / STOWELL AND BENNETT

2001), and potentially frees up class time if given in place of classroom-based

tests. However, questions remain about how online testing affects performance
or emotional states during testing. For example, “Do students perform as well
on online exams as they do on paper and pencil exams?” “Does test anxiety
in the classroom generalize to taking exams online?” and “What individual
characteristics contribute to differences in performance and anxiety during online
examinations?” These questions are important to address because online testing
could put some students at an unfair disadvantage.
In answer to the first question, Alexander et al. (2001) found that there
was no significant difference in exam scores between those who took a busi-
ness course exam online in a proctored setting and those who completed the
exam in the classroom. They also noted that there was no influence of
demographic factors (age, sex, and class standing) on exam performance related
to testing condition. A review of research since 1993 confirms that, in most
cases, there is no difference in test scores between paper and computer tests
(Paek, 2005).
Test anxiety is comprised of affective (physiological arousal, emotionality),
cognitive (worry), and behavioral (procrastination, avoidance) components,
which together may interfere with a person’s academic achievement (see
Hembree, 1988; Zeidner, 1998). The questions posed above about anxiety in
online settings and the role of individual characteristics have their theoretical
foundation on the belief that anxiety associated with using a computer may add to
anxiety experienced while taking a test, leading to further impaired performance
(Schult & McIntosh, 2004).
Two decades ago, neither computer experience nor computer anxiety were
shown to have a significant effect on performance on a computerized algebra test
(Wise, Barnes, Harvey, & Plake, 1989). However, more recent studies suggest
that students who are comfortable writing on computer actually do better on
computerized writing exams (for review see Russell, Goldberg, & O’Connor,
2003), suggesting that the effect of computer experience probably depends on
the specific context.
Although many educators are implementing online testing for regular course
exams, most of the research on the effects of test anxiety in computerized settings
is confined to computerized- or self-adaptive testing situations (Marszalek, 2007;
Shermis & Lombard, 1998; Shermis, Mzumara, & Bublitz, 2001). Similar
to online exams, computerized adaptive testing (CAT) is administered on a
computer, but in CAT a computerized algorithm selects the difficulty of sub-
sequent questions based on performance of the previous question. In self-adaptive
testing (SAT), the test-taker selects the level of difficulty of each subsequent
question, or groups of questions. In both cases, these computerized test methods
do not allow the test-taker to skip questions or return to previous questions,
unlike online exams administered through a typical course management
system (e.g., Blackboard, Moodle). Furthermore, online exams do not vary item
 ONLINE AND CLASSROOM TEST ANXIETY / 163

difficulty based on prior performance. Because of these differences in exam

procedures, it is difficult to generalize the findings on anxiety from CAT and SAT
testing to other online exams.
Other research on test anxiety has been limited by sample selection prob-
lems. For example, participants taking the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) on
paper or computer were not randomly assigned to the different formats of
the exam (Powers, 2001). Instead, participants could choose which format
to take. Thus, it is difficult to know if differences in anxiety were due to
the exam format or differences in the characteristics of the participants
(i.e., students taking the online test may have greater experience taking com-
puterized exams).
In a study of online test anxiety in a more naturalistic setting, Schult and
McIntosh (2004) compared the anxiety of students in psychology classes who
knew they would be taking online tests to students in other sections who expected
to take paper tests. They found that simply imagining taking an online test
produced more anxiety for those who were in the traditional testing sections than
those in the online test sections, probably because it was a change from what
students in those sections had expected. Unfortunately, exam performance across
sections could not be tested because each of the different instructors created
different exams.
In summary, research is lacking that specifically examines how students’ test
anxiety and performance may differ when taking regular course exams in an
online versus traditional classroom setting. Our interest in this project arose
from the experience of the first author who began administering online exams in
his introductory psychology class. At the end of the semester, students reported
feeling less anxious about taking exams online than in the classroom. One
explanation for the reduction in stress might be the greater control they had in
deciding when and where to take the online exams. This explanation is consistent
with the finding that students high in math anxiety are more likely to prefer
forms of computerized testing that allow students greater control, such as SAT
(Wise, Roos, Plake, & Nebelsick-Gullett, 1994). In contrast, another study that
manipulated the amount of control over the level of difficulty of test items
found no significant difference in test anxiety between CAT and SAT conditions
(Shermis et al., 2001).
The purpose of this study was to empirically measure test anxiety and exam
performance under two conditions: an online setting and in the regular classroom.
To minimize bias from self-selection of participants, we chose to use a counter-
balanced within-subjects design. Our hypothesis was that students would experi-
ence less test anxiety when taking an online exam than when taking an exam in
the classroom because of the greater control over the testing situation. Second,
because test anxiety is inversely related to exam performance (Seipp, 1991), we
predicted that the decrease in test anxiety in an online setting would lead to higher
exam performance.
164 / STOWELL AND BENNETT

METHOD
Participants
All 69 students enrolled in the first author’s Psychology of Learning course
participated in exchange for course credit. Seventeen participants were men
and 52 were women, with a mean age of 21.3 (SD = 2.2) years. The majority
(91%) of the students were junior or senior status, and 59 (86%) were Caucasian,
8 (12%) African American, 1 (1%) American Indian, and 1 (1%) Asian American.
Seventy-five percent of the participants had taken an online exam before par-
ticipating in this study.

Instruments
AEQ

A portion of the Academic Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ; Pekrun, Goetz,

Titz, & Perry, 2002) measures emotions experienced during academic examina-
tions, while the remainder of the AEQ measures classroom and learning related
emotions. We chose the scales specific to taking an examination and asked
students to report the extent to which they were currently experiencing different
emotions by having them respond to 25 items before an exam (AEQ-Before).
Although we were primarily interested in the items related to test anxiety
(“Before the exam I feel nervous and uneasy”), it is known that other emotions
are also related to achievement and motivation, possibly even more so than
anxiety (Pekrun et al., 2002). Thus, we also measured enjoyment (“I look forward
to the exam), hope (“I am optimistic that everything will work out fine”), anger
(“I get angry about the amount of material I need to know”), pride (“I’m so
proud of my preparation that I want to start the exam now”), shame (“I can’t
even think about how embarrassing it would be to fail the exam”), and hopeless-
ness (“My hopelessness robs me of all my energy”). Another 27 AEQ items,
given immediately after the exam, measured these same emotions felt during
the exam (AEQ-During).
Students rated the individual AEQ items on a Likert scale from 1 (Strongly
Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree). We summed individual item scores for the
emotion subscales at both time points (substituting any missing values with the
mean of other items on the same subscale), and then summed each emotion’s
respective AEQ-Before and AEQ-During scores. At the end of the semester,
participants also completed a survey regarding their prior experience with online
testing and their preferences for online versus classroom exams to see if prior
experience influenced attitudes about online testing.
Examinations

From the first author’s psychology of learning class, we selected the third
and fourth regular exams for the study (there were four regular exams during
 ONLINE AND CLASSROOM TEST ANXIETY / 165

the semester, each spaced 3 weeks apart). The online exams were identical to
the classroom exams and students had the same duration of time, 50 minutes, to
complete them once they started the exam. Each exam covered learning topics
(e.g., operant conditioning, vicarious learning) discussed in the textbook and
the classroom since the previous exam and contained true/false and multiple-
choice questions, with about 30% of the maximum 50 points from short answer
questions. Each exam accounted for 11% of the total course grade. For the online
exams, we used course management software (WebCT 8.0) to deliver the exam
questions all at once, allowing students to answer the questions in any order
desired. Students completed classroom exams, administered by the instructor,
on paper with a scantron sheet to record their answers.

Procedure
Students whose last names started with A-M (n = 35) completed their third
exam online anytime during a 5-day window that started when the other students
(N-Z, n = 34) took their exam in the classroom. We chose to make the online
testing condition in harmony with the standard practice of providing students a
window of time to complete the online exam (this being one of the major
advantages over classroom testing). We instructed students taking the exam
in the classroom not to share information about the exam with students who
would be taking it online. For the fourth exam, we switched the format for
all participants (i.e., A-M in the classroom, N-Z online), resulting in a counter-
balanced crossover design where we could compare participants’ data under both
testing formats.
At the time of both exams, we instructed participants to complete the AEQ-
Before immediately prior to taking the exam and the AEQ-During immediately
afterwards. When taking their exams online in WebCT, the AEQ surveys were
administered online, but four participants failed to complete them at the appro-
priate time, resulting in online AEQ data for 65 participants. For various reasons,
three students did not take their paper exam with the rest of the class so we
excluded their AEQ data and classroom exam scores from analyses. Where
relevant, our reported measure of effect size is partial eta squared.

RESULTS

The group of students that took the online exam first (A-M) did not differ
significantly from the other students in the class on demographic factors, test
anxiety, or exam scores (see Table 1). General Linear Model (GLM) analyses
in SPSS found no significant main effects of group or interactions with group,
confirming that the counterbalanced design was effective in reducing treatment
order effects.
166 / STOWELL AND BENNETT

Table 1. Descriptive Statistics of Demographic Factors, Anxiety Scores,

and Exam Scores of Counterbalanced Groups

Online Exam First Paper Exam First

(A-M, n = 35) (N-Z, n = 34)

Demographics
Grade Point Average 3.11 (0.48) 3.13 (0.50)
Age 21.2 (1.7) 21.4 (2.5)
Female 80.0% 70.6%
Exam score on prior exams 79.1% 80.3%
Taken online before 73.5% 76.5%

Dependent measures
Exam 3, Test Anxiety Score 34.0 (8.9) 30.8 (8.4)
Exam 4, Test Anxiety Score 34.0 (11.0) 33.8 (7.4)
Exam 3, Exam Score 42.5 (4.2) 41.3 (6.3)
Exam 4, Exam Score 36.8 (6.5) 36.4 (6.6)

Exam Performance
We considered classroom-based test anxiety to be a baseline estimate of general
test anxiety that could influence both classroom and online exam scores. Thus, we
treated classroom anxiety as a covariate in a GLM model with exam format as
a repeated measures factor (classroom, online) and exam score as the dependent
variable. We found a main effect of classroom test anxiety, which was associated
with poorer exam performance across exam formats, F(1, 63) = 24.19, p < .001,
np2 = .28. More importantly, the relationship between classroom test anxiety
and exam score depended on exam format, F(1, 63) = 5.80, p = .02, np2 = .08.
Follow-up correlational analyses helped illustrate the nature of this interaction:
whereas high classroom test anxiety was associated with poor performance in
the classroom (r = –.57, p < .001, n = 66), it was less strongly associated with
exam performance online (r = –.28, p = .02, n = 65).
Furthermore, when the correlation between anxiety and performance in the
classroom was compared to the correlation between anxiety and performance
online (r = –.29, p = .02, n = 65), a significant difference was found, z = 1.95,
p = .03 (one-tailed), suggesting that the relationship between anxiety and exam
performance was stronger in the classroom setting than the online setting.
Although our primary focus was on test anxiety, the other negative emotions of
anger, shame, and hopelessness were also associated with poorer exam per-
formance, while the positive emotions of enjoyment, hope, and pride were asso-
ciated with better exam performance (see Table 2).
 ONLINE AND CLASSROOM TEST ANXIETY / 167

Table 2. Pearson Correlations of Exam-Related Academic

Emotions with Exam Scores

Online Exam Score Classroom Exam Score

Online Emotions
Enjoyment 0.35** 0.01
Hope 0.30* 0.18
Pride 0.36** 0.05
Anger –0.34** –0.16
Anxiety –0.29* –0.26*
Shame –0.41** –0.16
Hopelessness –0.42** –0.25

Classroom Emotions
Enjoyment 0.23 0.40**
Hope 0.25* 0.29*
Pride 0.27* 0.39**
Anger –0.07 –0.30*
Anxiety –0.28* –0.56**
Shame –0.11 –0.59**
Hopelessness –0.23 –0.59**
*p < .05; **p < .01.

Test Anxiety
To determine if differences between students’ classroom and online anxiety
depended on classroom (i.e., “baseline”) anxiety levels, we entered classroom test
anxiety as a factor (high/low, median split) in a GLM model, with exam format as a
repeated measures factor, and anxiety level as the dependent variable. There was
no main effect of exam format on anxiety level, F(1, 60) = 1.14, p > .28; however,
we found a strong interaction between classroom anxiety level and exam format,
F(1, 60) = 21.26, p < .001, np2 = .26. Students who experienced high levels of
anxiety in the classroom had significantly lower test anxiety scores when taking
the exam online, t (32) = –5.03, p < .001, whereas students low in classroom
anxiety had significantly higher test anxiety levels when taking the exam online,
t (28) = 2.08, p < .05 (see Figure 1).
The majority of the students in our sample had taken online exams before
(75%). Of those who had, 59% indicated a preference for the online format, while
only 35% of the 17 students that were new to online testing indicated a similar
preference. Experience in taking online exams did not affect online anxiety
levels or online exam scores, ps > .48. It also had a negligible effect on the
previous GLM models when included as a covariate.
168 / STOWELL AND BENNETT

50 - - - - · - - - Low Classroom Anxiety

–—n—– High Classroom Anxiety

45 -
Total Anxiety Experienced

40 -

35 -

30 -

25 -

20 -

15 -

Classroom Exam Online Exam

Figure 1. Total test anxiety experienced under

different exam settings.

Overall, slightly more than half of the students indicated a preference for taking
their exams online (54%), compared to the traditional classroom setting (46%).
Interestingly, those who indicated a preference for online exams had higher
classroom test anxiety (M = 35.5, SD = 9.1) than those who indicated a preference
for the classroom setting (M = 29.0, SD = 9.8), t (64) = 2.78, p = .007.
Our sample included a relatively small number of men, but they reported
significantly lower levels of test anxiety than women (M = 29.9, SD = 7.4 versus
M = 34.3, SD = 7.7), F(1, 60) = 6.28, p = .02, np2 = .10. This sex difference did not
depend on exam format, p > .52.

DISCUSSION
Contrary to our hypothesis that online testing would be less anxious for students
than classroom testing, students reported comparable levels of test anxiety and
performed equally well under both exam conditions. However, these findings
were not true of all students. Indeed, we found moderately sized effects that
 ONLINE AND CLASSROOM TEST ANXIETY / 169

depended on the level of classroom anxiety. For students high in classroom

anxiety, taking an online exam weakened the relationship between their test
anxiety and poor exam performance, and reduced their test anxiety. For those low
in classroom anxiety, online testing appears to promote test anxiety, possibly
from the added procedure of logging in to WebCT and relying on the technology
to function properly, the extra responsibility of having to monitor themselves to
avoid cheating or unfamiliarity with online testing.
Interestingly, test anxiety and exam scores were not affected by prior experi-
ence taking online exams, but we found that students who stated a preference for
online testing were more likely to be high in classroom test anxiety. This may
indicate an avoidance response to classroom based exams. As such, online testing
may provide a way for high test anxious students to escape the classroom cues
that have been conditioned to elicit test anxiety in the past. The fact that test
anxiety experienced in the classroom and online are only moderately correlated
suggests that test anxiety experienced in the classroom does not generalize
strongly to online testing. Because students can take their exam virtually anywhere
they have a computer and internet connection, they can take their test in an
environment that is less likely to contain anxiety-provoking conditioned stimuli.
On the other hand, taking the exam outside of the classroom context may also
reduce the number of memory retrieval cues available to them and thereby offset
any performance gains, in accordance with the context-dependent memory
effect (Godden & Baddeley, 1975).
One of the hypothesized reasons for a potential reduction in test anxiety while
taking exams online is the degree of control over the testing environment. As
perceived control contributes greatly to the appraisal of stressful events (Lazarus,
1999), giving students control over their test-taking environment, as well as
control over the timing of the exam, may be particularly helpful for students with
high levels of test anxiety. With online testing, students can take the exam when
they feel more prepared, or at least schedule their exam to avoid times that other
major assignments may be due. Furthermore, online testing allows students to take
their exam at a time of day that better coincides with their preferred sleep/wake
cycle, resulting in better exam performance (Hartley & Nicholls, 2008).
Because we followed standard practice in allowing students to take their exam
anytime during a window of availability instead of requiring them to take it at the
same time as students in the classroom, we do not know if the differences in test
anxiety and performance are due to the increased flexibility of scheduling, or
the actual online environment itself. Further research that controls for the timing
will help clarify which of these is more important.
We should also note the potential disadvantages of online testing, including
the possibility of hardware/software problems and an increased temptation to
cheat in an unsupervised setting (Street, 2008). Indeed, 78% of our sample agreed
to some extent that online testing increases the likelihood of students cheating.
However, our study did not directly assess whether students cheated on either
170 / STOWELL AND BENNETT

format of the exam, which would have been difficult because the student responses
were not anonymous. Although it is difficult to rule out the possibility that students
used the internet to look up test answers or collaborated with a fellow student
during the online exam, we found nearly identical means, standard deviations,
and grade distributions across exam formats. Thus, if students did cheat, there was
no appreciable effect on their grades. Alternatively, students may have done more
poorly online if it were not for the opportunity to cheat, resulting in performance
comparable to their classroom performance. Finally, students’ perceptions about
cheating are probably exaggerated, as Engler, Landau, and Epstein (2008) noted
that students overestimate the likelihood of their peers cheating in relation to
the likelihood of themselves cheating.
In conclusion, online testing is a two-edged sword that has potential benefits
for some students, but negative consequences for others. The greatest benefits
appear to be for students who ordinarily experience high levels of negative
emotions during classroom examinations. To reduce unpleasant emotional
reactions and improve exam performance of certain students, instructors may
consider giving students the option of online testing as an alternative to taking
classroom examinations. However, at the present, it appears that not all students
are either ready or willing to embrace online testing with open arms.

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Direct reprint requests to:

Dr. Jeffrey R. Stowell
Department of Psychology
Eastern Illinois University
1151 Physical Sciences
Charleston, IL 61920
e-mail: jrstowell@eiu.edu
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