PADMAKANYA MULTIPLE CAMPUS

Test Anxiety Levels of High School

and Undergraduate Students
A Mini Research in the Partial Requirement of Research Methodology – Psychology 313

1/8/2017

Submitted to:
Department of Psychology,
Padmakanya Multiple Campus
Baghbazar, Kathmandu

Submitted by:
Shripa Pradhan
380288
BA Psychology, 2nd Year
 Approval Letter

To whom it may concern,

The research on the topic “Test Anxiety levels of High School and Undergraduate Students”
compiled by Shripa Pradhan in partial requirement of Research Methodology – Psychology 313 is
approved the department of Social Work, Padmakanya Multiple Campus, Baghbazar, Kathmandu
and the external expert sent by Tribhuvan University, Kritipur.

_____________________ _____________________
Faculty Supervisor, External Expert,
Padmakanya Multiple Campus Tribhuvan University,
Baghbazar, Kathmandu Kritipur, Kathmandu

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 Acknowledgement

The journey of mini research had been a huge success. As a student of research methodology in
psychology, I happened to be exposed to new perspective and insights into the mechanisms of how
the research process works. Furthermore, I had the chance to learn about similar researches in the
topic, different test methods and findings. It was a great learning experience and I cannot thank
few entities without whom this wasn’t possible.

First and foremost, I would like to thank the college, the faculty members of Research
Methodology for the constant guidance and the course requirement itself, because of which I got
the opportunity to interact and expose myself to the practical workload.

Secondly, I would like to thank the participants and respondents of the questionnaires for being
keen to be a part of this research.

Lastly, I would like thank my dearest friends who were a huge part of this learning journey.
Together we have made memories, faced challenges, and grew graciously and I want to thank you
for that.

Shripa Pradhan
Symbol Number: 380288
Padmakanya Multiple Campus

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 Abstract

The present study examines the test anxiety found in the high school students and undergraduate
students of Kathmandu. Test anxiety has been studied extensively in western countries but much
less so in eastern countries. The research is based on Westside Test Anxiety Scale given by Richard
Driscoll. Participants included 20 high school students and 20 undergraduate students from age
group of 16 to 24. Qualitative data were collected to see whether there is difference of anxiety
level between high school students and undergraduate students. With the data analysis, it was
found that the level of text anxiety was comparatively higher in high school students when
compared with undergraduate students.

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 Table of Contents

Chapter – I: Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 1

1.1 Background ................................................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Significance................................................................................................................................... 2
1.3 Hypothesis........................................................................................................................................... 3
1.4 Objectives ........................................................................................................................................... 4
1.5 Limitations of the Study...................................................................................................................... 4
Chapter – II: Literature Review .................................................................................................................... 5
Chapter – III: Methodology .......................................................................................................................... 6
3.1 Research Design.................................................................................................................................. 6
3.2 Sampling ............................................................................................................................................. 6
3.3 Data Collection Tool ........................................................................................................................... 6
3.4 Data Finding and Analysis .................................................................................................................. 7
Chapter – IV: Discussion and Conclusion .................................................................................................... 8
References ................................................................................................................................................... 10
Annex .......................................................................................................................................................... 11

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 Chapter – I: Introduction
1.1 Background
American Psychological Association defines anxiety as an emotion characterized by feelings of
tension, worried thoughts and physical changes like increased blood pressure.

Anxiety is a natural emotional response to the stress. However, in cases of anxiety disorder, the
anxiety is excessive, intrusive, making them avoid certain situations and hinders the social
functioning of the person.

The exaggerated worries and expectations of negative outcomes in unknown situations that typify
anxiety are often accompanied by physical symptoms. These include muscle tension, headaches,
stomach cramps, and frequent urination. (Anxiety, Psychology Today, 2018)

Anxiety can be caused by various factors and situations. One of such is the performance anxiety
caused by academic exams which are termed as “test anxiety”. Exams and tests are usually stressful
situation and can cause anxiety or nervousness. However, when the anxiety causes impairments
on the performance and results physical and psychological distress, then it becomes problematic.

Anxiety can cause a host of problems in students. Although each person will experience a different
collection of symptoms with differing degrees of intensity, the symptoms fall into a few categories.

• Physical - headaches, nausea or diarrhea, extreme body temperature changes, excessive

sweating, shortness of breath, light-headedness or fainting, rapid heartbeat, and/or dry
mouth.
• Emotional - excessive feelings of fear, disappointment, anger, depression, uncontrollable
crying or laughing, feelings of helplessness.
• Behavioral - fidgeting, pacing, substance abuse, avoidance.
• Cognitive - racing thoughts, 'going blank', difficulty concentrating, negative self-talk,
feelings of dread, comparing yourself to others, difficulty organizing your thoughts.

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1.2 Significance
In the recent years, the news of students committing suicide because of scoring low grades in SEE
(The Himalayan Times, 2016) - Secondary Education Exams has been increasing. The anxiety of
the exams, the fear and humiliation that follows the results are reported to be the cause of the
students’ extreme measures.

The story is even worse in the neighboring country – India.

Students in India are killing themselves at a fast rate, with 26 suicides reported every 24 hours.
Going by the latest data, 9,474 students committed suicide in 2016 – at a rate of more than one
every hour. (Times of India, 2018)

However, only failure in the tests aren’t just the reason of these tragedies.

Our society does put large significance on the idea of having good grades. The notion that good
grades gets you to good college and that translates to good job and better life lies deeply rooted in
the mindsets of the people. This mentality stresses the students for striving to get higher grades.
Moreover, the preference of the stereotypical “well off” academic fields like medicine, engineering
and technical fields over any other career choices, adds extra burden on the students to achieve
good grades to be selected for studying these competitive fields. The narrative of good grades
representing the intelligence of the students, their possible future and validation of their worth as
a decent human is concerning. Furthermore, stigmatization of mental health issues to deal with
such pressure and anxiety adds fuel to the fire.

To meet these high expectations, the students are forced to work hard from dusk till dawn, most
often cutting off the time from extracurricular activities, refreshments, hobbies and passions for
extra coaching classes. For the board exams, students are forced to work throughout the years.
Added pressure from the schools, family, peers and themselves doesn’t help the situation either.

Unfortunately, the struggle doesn’t end with passing the high school board exams. The excessive
competition to getting into the elite colleges, getting scholarships for massive tuition fees and
dilemma of choosing the career path creates more anxiety. It carries on to the universities where
the courses are even tougher and demands time and effort from the students. Specially in the status
quo, where these students are victimized by forced career choices, they are reluctant to the idea of

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working hard. Furthermore, the poor education system and vast curriculum only does worse. The
only solution to this frustrating situation is either dropping out of the college, or worse suicide.

The depressing reality of aspiring engineering students killing themselves (BBC, 2016) shows that
studies and exams in general is a source of massive stress and performance anxiety. Therefore, this
research focuses on the urgency of the status quo and tries to analyze the level of test anxiety of
students of high school and undergraduates in Nepal. The consequences of severe test anxiety
ought not to be taken lightly.

1.3 Hypothesis
Considering the status quo and urgency of the problem, this research will try to analyze the level
of anxiety of the students of both high school as well as Bachelor’s degree. The research will also
further compare the anxiety level of both the academic levels.

The hypothesis of the research would be “Level of test anxiety in high school students is higher
than undergraduate students”

The hypothesis has been assumed understanding the immense pressure high schoolers have to face,
not just because of the tests but also the added responsibility of getting good grades so that they
would get into elite colleges. Furthermore, the decision of choosing an appropriate career path for
their future also would cause more stress. The students are still in their teens and are going through
developmental crisis simultaneously. Considering these reasons, the prediction of high schoolers
having more test anxiety has been made in comparison to university students.

University students have matured age wise and also have been through the hectic journey of
choosing colleges and career path. They have experienced more than their high school counterparts
and hence would be able to tackle anxiety and distress more successfully.

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1.4 Objectives
The objectives of the study are:

1) To understand the level of test anxiety of high school and undergraduate students.
2) To conduct a mini research on the basis of the learning of the syllabus.

1.5 Limitations of the Study

The limitations of the study includes:

1. Small sample size which could give less reliable data.

2. Lesser research on the topic of Test Anxiety in context to Nepal.
3. Due to the lack of the budget, larger sample size that could fairly represent the population
could not be taken.
4. Limitation of the time to conduct the research
5. Limitations of the human resource to conduct the study

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 Chapter – II: Literature Review
The twentieth century has been called "the age of anxiety". However, the concern with anxiety
phenomena is as old as the history of humanity. For many years, theories of anxiety were rooted
primarily in the experiences of clinical workers and the insight of the sensitive observers of the
West The nebulous character of the phenomena, prompted many researchers to focus their
attention on the sperific sources of anxiety in social, public speaking and test situations. The 1950s
saw the spawning of test anxiety research in earnest, which began at Yale University in 1952.
Almost two decades after this initiation, the first attempt to understand the antecedent of test
anxiety of schoolchildren was made by Nijbawan (1972). (Sud, March 1, 2001 )

Examination stress among college students has been a topic of interest for many years. College
students experience high stress due to various reasons such as lack of preparation, style of their
study and lack of needed information. When stress is perceived negatively or becomes excessive,
it leads to anxiety before and during examinations and ultimately affects their academic
achievement. (Archana Kumari, Jagrati Jain, December 2014)

The latest report by the National Crime Records Bureau has positioned Tamil Nadu as the Indian
state with highest suicide rate. At least in part, this is happening due to exam pressure among
adolescents, emphasizing the imperative need to understand the pattern of anxiety and various
factors contributing to it among students. (Mary, July 2014)

In the context of Nepal, there hasn’t been many researches on the topic of test anxiety related to
students. However, there has been researches on the mental health issues regarding students of
different fields. Academic achievement becomes quest for many students in different level of
education in Nepal. And with that, anxiety level is sure to increase as well.

The prevalence rates were 29.2% (95% CI, 24.4% – 34.3%) depression, 22.4% (95% CI, 18.0% –
26.9%) medium to highly severe somatic symptoms, 4.1% (95% CI, 2.0% – 6.2%) panic
syndrome, 5.8% (95% CI, 3.4% – 8.3%) other anxiety syndrome, 5% (95% CI, 2.7% – 7.3%) binge
eating disorder and 1.2% (95% CI, 0.0% - 2.3%) bulimia nervosa. (Adhikari, November 2017)

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 Chapter – III: Methodology
3.1 Research Design
The research design is descriptive in nature which is focused on analyzing the level of test anxiety
of the students. The demographics was focused on the students studying in high schools and
undergraduates living in Kathmandu district from the ages of 16 to 24. Qualitative data was taken
into consideration for testing the hypothesis hence to make the research describable, objective,
comparable and verifiable. Self-reporting tools for data collection was used for the purpose of the
research and primary data was collected. However, references from existing research bodies were
also used to get proper understanding of the findings.

The research has tried to analyze the level of test anxiety and gap between the factor in high school
students and undergraduates.

3.2 Sampling
The process of selecting a portion from the population to represent the population is known as
sampling. For the purpose of the research, many types of non-probability sampling techniques
were used. Students of the Kathmandu valley selected by convenience sampling and purposive
sampling. The study participants were chosen based on the study’s purpose as well as considering
the feasibility of the researcher. The study participants are chosen based on the study’s purpose.

The sample size of the study was 40 respondents – 20 high school students and 20 undergraduate
students. The students were between the age of 16 and 24. Informed consent was taken from all
the participants; the responses were kept confidential and research ethics was maintained
throughout the research procedure.

3.3 Data Collection Tool

Quantitate data was collected for the purpose of the research using the self-report method of
questionnaire. Westside Test Anxiety Scale (Richard Driscoll, 2006) was used as a tool to collect
the primary data for the study. The scale is constructed to measure anxiety impairments, with most
items asking directly about performance impairment or about worrying, which interferes with
concentration.

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The questionnaire included 10 questions with a 5-point scale with 5 showing extremely always
true to 1 showing never true at all. The Westside Scale is found to be a highly sensitive measure
of anxiety impairment.

3.4 Data Finding and Analysis

Total 40 respondents took the questionnaire.

Each category of the type of students had 20 students. The sum of the points from the questionnaire
divided by 10 was their test anxiety score. Average of each category was taken and following result
could be seen:

Types of Students Average Test Anxiety Scores of Students

High School Students 3.5

Undergraduate Students 3.0

Graphical Representation of The Test Anxiety Level

3.6
3.5
3.4
3.3
3.2
3.1
3
2.9
2.8
2.7
Level of Test Anxiety
High School Students Undergraduate Students

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 Chapter – IV: Discussion and Conclusion
From the above data analysis, we can see the average test anxiety score of high school students is
3.5 points and the average test anxiety score of undergraduate students are 3.0 points. There is 0.5
(7.6%) difference between the test anxiety score between the types of the students. Therefore, the
hypothesis of the research that “level of test anxiety in high school students is higher than
undergraduate students” is proved.

Few reasons as to why this could be the reason are high schoolers’ age. They are just in their
adolescence. The students are already facing their developmental crisis according to their age
which ranges from psychological, physical and emotional. Added stress of the exams, only adds
up to the total anxiety and it shows in the test paper as well. Moreover, during this time, these high
school students also have the added stress to their exams. Their grades could translate to them
getting into colleges and going after their careers.

In comparison to the undergraduate students, these students have already matured in terms of age
and experience in some shape and form. Meaning that they already have chosen their academic
and career path. Since they’ve already been through the difficult stages a high school graduate has
to face, they have lower test anxiety than that of the high school students.

However, according to the Westside Test Anxiety Scale, the normal anxiety level of the students
should be around 2.0 to 2.5 points which helps the students to be alert and motivated during the
tests. Considering this, the level of both high school students as well as the undergraduate students
have higher test anxiety that normal. When compared with the average test anxiety score given by
the Westwide Test Anxiety Scale, it can be found that high school students have 1.0 points more
than that of average and undergraduate students have 0.5 points more than that of average.

There could be few reasons behind it.

First, the education system is flawed in many ways. From priority given to rot studying in terms
of answering to the questions rather than focusing on the conceptual ideas and creativity to lesser
use of application and practical based learning than theoretical knowledge is not helping the case
with the students. Education system has an umbrella approach while making the students learn
about new things as well as evaluation of their understanding. However, the diversity of
intelligence, learning pattern, interest and knowledge shouldn’t be compromised in the first place.

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There must be serious changes in the policies, education system and approaches of learning in the
schools to even imagine a considerable change in the present status quo.

Secondly, the ambition our society’s parents have about their children getting excellent marks, and
the pressure that comes with that expectation should not be ignored as well. The notion of self-
worth and intelligence lying the written letters and numbers of the report cards is deeply rooted in
the family, school as well as the students themselves. Furthermore, the narrative of forced career
choices for their kids is something that is really problematic. Students should be allowed and made
feel okay to have interests in unconventional career choices. Not everyone can be doctors and
engineers, hence just being these conventionally desirable professionals doesn’t always mean a
successful and worthwhile life.

Lastly, there are prejudices and stigmatization of mental health issues in our society. The negative
connotation that lies with dealing with mental health issues and the feeling of humiliation and pride
that tags along with it is depressing news. This is significantly harmful when people really do need
help and some support for their daily social functioning. This could also be applied in terms of the
students facing difficulties during studies and exams. The lack of proper awareness as well care
for the students in their time of need creates this false sense of flaw in them with the mentality that
“something is wrong with them that they can’t study properly.” However, the “wrong” isn’t in
their study method or their hard work but with their high level of anxiety that aren’t addressed
properly and timely.

All of these factors create a perfect breeding ground for test anxiety levels in the students to rise
and create resentment not only towards exams but also to the school and learning experience in
general.

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 References

Adhikari, A. (November 2017). Prevalence of poor mental health among medical students in
Nepal: a cross-sectional study.

Anxiety, Psychology Today. (2018, June 19). Retrieved from

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/anxiety

Archana Kumari, Jagrati Jain. (December 2014). EXAMINATION STRESS AND ANXIETY:
A STUDY OF COLLEGE STUDENTS.

BBC. (2016, May 19). Retrieved from Why India's aspiring engineers are killing themselves:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-36283756

Driscoll, R. (2004). Westwide Test Anxiety.

Mary, R. A. (July 2014). Test Anxiety Levels of Board Exam Going Students in Tamil Nadu,
India.

Sud, A. (March 1, 2001 ). Test Anxiety Research in India: Twentieth Century in Retrospect.

The Himalayan Times. (2016, June 18). Retrieved from Students Commit Suicide After Scoring
Low In SLC: https://thehimalayantimes.com/nepal/student-commits-suicide-scoring-
lower-grade-slc/

Times of India. (2018, January 8). Retrieved from One student kills self every hour in India :
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/one-student-kills-self-every-hour-in-
india/articleshow/62407752.cms

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 Annex
Westside Test Anxiety Scale (Driscoll, 2004)

Rate how true each of the following is of you, from extremely or always true, to not at all or never
true. Use the following 5 point scale. Circle your answer:

5 - extremely always true 4 - highly usually true 3 - moderately true sometimes

2 - slightly rarely true 1 - never true at all

1. The closer I am to a major exam, the harder it is for me to concentrate on the material.
1 2 3 4 5
2. When I study, I worry that I will not remember the material on the exam.
1 2 3 4 5
3. During important exams, I think that I am doing awful or that I may fail.
1 2 3 4 5
4. I lose focus on important exams, and I cannot remember material that I knew before the
exam.
1 2 3 4 5
5. I finally remember the answer to exam questions after the exam is already over.
1 2 3 4 5
6. I worry so much before a major exam that I am too worn out to do my best on the exam.
1 2 3 4 5
7. I feel out of sorts or not really myself when I take important exams.
1 2 3 4 5
8. I find that my mind sometimes wanders when I am taking important exams.
1 2 3 4 5
9. After an exam, I worry about whether I did well enough.
1 2 3 4 5
10. I struggle with writing assignments or avoid them as long as I can. I feel that whatever I do
will not be good enough.
1 2 3 4 5

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Total Score divided by 10 is the test anxiety score.

What does your test anxiety score mean?

1.0—1.9 Comfortably low-test anxiety

2.0—2.5 Normal or average test anxiety

2.5—2.9 High normal test anxiety

3.0—3.4 Moderately high (some items rated 4=high)

3.5—3.9 High test anxiety (half or more of the items rated 4=high)

4.0—5.0 Extremely high anxiety (items rated 4=high and 5=extreme

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