Anxiety has always been an issue when it comes to taking exams. Children are now feeling test anxiety at an early age. Once students enter third grade, they become susceptible to feeling anxiety due to pressure of exams. The purpose of this research is to investigate whether or not students feel this pressure and that may possibly lead them to feel anxiety. Thirty-seven student from two classes participated in this investigation. This study was conducted in a classroom setting as a teacher administered two different exams.
Students were required to get the appropriate written parental consent to participate. Once consent was received, students were required to complete a student self-questionnaire, the Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS), and exams administered by the teacher. Results were concluded on the variance that was discovered upon completion of the questionnaire, CTAS, and exams. With the concluding data, the researcher will be able to determine whether students feel anxiety.
Keywords: Anxiety, Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale
Test anxiety has been an occurrence experienced by many student in their education history.
This is something that at times cannot be controlled and is hard to overcome. It is experienced by test anxious students as tension, worry, and over-stimulation of the central nervous system (Ergene 2003 Goh, Liem, Yeo, 2016). Whether it is a classroom test or state test, students are required to take exams. Students have begun to feel anxiety as early as third grade. Third grade is the grade level in which students begin to take state exams, such as the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR).
Testing is something which is inevitable. By the age of 9, students begin to prepare for exams in which their whole education is based on. Since that time, the educational accountability movement in the United States has greatly increased the importance that testing has on the educational and occupational outcomes of children (Barterian, Carlson, Goforth, Segool, & Von Der Embse, 2013). The pressure begins to grow as teachers begin to prepare them for state exams. Some students believe that their entire education is based on this state exam alone. Students can be the brightest in the class but may test poorly due to test anxiety. These studies suggest that state testing programs have resulted in increased student anxiety, increased stress, lowered motivation, increased focus on test preparation, and increased job stress and lowered job satisfaction for teachers (Abrams, Pedulla, & Madaus, 2003 Barksdale-Ladd & Thomas, 2000 Jones & Egley, 2004, 2006 Jones et al., 1999 Barterian, Carlson, Goforth, Segool, & Von Der Embse, 2013). Our society has begun to base everything on scores. Teachers feel the pressure to get a certain percentage on state exams and feel doubtful of their teaching if scores are not reached. Both students and teachers begin to focus on drill on state exams. Teachers drill to kill to get students to pass and students begin to feel that pressure. Teachers in a tested area begin to feel the increase in pressure and turn begin to pressure students to pass their exams. Parents begin to get calls, or are asked to come in to speak to their children’s teachers to make sure they put pressure on their children as well. Although these early studies found a negative relationship between parental pressure and academic performance, later researchers found academic performance positively related to the perceived parent-child relationship (Dornbusch, Ritter, Leiderman, Roberts, & Fraleigh, 1987 Carthron, Decoster, Ritchwood, 2015). Children can begin to feel anxiety if they are unable to uphold their parents expectations. Students who are known to live up to their parent’s expectations are well aware of the pressure put upon them. For those whom cannot, or feel they are unable to reach that expectancy, anxiety, worry, etc. will begin to kick in. When children were unable to meet these expectations, and parents reacted negatively, children began to experience anxiety in subsequent evaluation situations (Carthron, Decoster, Ritchwood, 2015).
Once students enter the dreaded testing grade level, they are required to learn a whole new world of testing. From second grade and below, students learn the basics. They know they must add, subtract, read, write and so on. They know that when testing a subject it is just that. For example, when taking a classroom exam on Friday students will test a story they have been reading the whole week. From third grade on, not only do they begin to take state exams, they have to learn a whole set of strategies. Strategies are taught to students so they can better find answers on their test. For example, paragraph and line is used in the reading exam. Students must show where they found their answers. They must write down which paragraph and which line shows them it is the answer they have chosen. Regardless if students are bright and do not need these strategies, they are required to do them. Having the pressure to do extra steps can make students feel overcome with stress and anxiety during the test. This pressure could increase test anxiety for those who are already predisposed. Presumably, if students are feeling overwhelmed by teacher-applied pressure to achieve, their study habits may be impaired (Carthron, Decoster, Ritchwood, 2015).
One projective study found that students overwhelmingly felt stress, anxiety, worry, and isolation as a result of testing (Triplett & Barksdale, 2005 Barterian, Carlson, Goforth, Segool, & Von Der Embse, 2013). Students may go blank as a result of anxiety, may feel sick, and will not know what to do. There have been known instances where students begin to feel anxiety and stressed out months before the final exam and begin to lose hair. There can be many several symptoms to anxiety. Students may feel confident about the material being studied and do well on class assignments, but if a student is overcome by anxiety, everything on the test becomes difficult.
Another factor resulting in test anxiety is academic self-concept. Academic self-concept is broadly defined as a multidimensional construct comprising all self-beliefs of one’s own abilities related to different school subjects (i.e., math, German, English) (Lohbeck, Nitkowski, & Petermann, 2016). The way a student perceives themselves can affect how they will feel during an exam. For instance, if a student is completely positive and knows that they often do well, they will a have high academic self-concept. A student who knows they often fail may have low academic self-concept and struggle to feel calm during an exam. Having negative thoughts about always doing poorly can lead to test anxiety. Conversely, a lower academic self-concept coincides with more maladaptive action-control behaviors and unpleasant emotions such as test anxiety (Goetz et al. 2010 Lohbeck, Nitkowski, & Petermann, 2016).
Interests can play a role in test anxiety as well. It is known that teachers must capture the interests of student’s by doing hands-on activities. For those students who lack focus, teachers must find an interest and find a way to incorporate that interest into a lesson. It contains cognitive and affective components and can be divided into personal and situational interests: Personal interest relates to a long lasting preoccupation with something and depicts an intrinsic character, whereas situational interest is an effective response to specific stimuli in the environment that focuses on one’s attention on the task, which may or may not last over time (Hidi and Renninger 2006 Rotgans and Schmidt 2011 Lohbeck, Nitkowski, & Petermann, 2016). When taking an exam reading passages can be long and at times tedious to students. If a student finds these passages uninteresting, they will no longer put effort in completing the exam. Similarly, Macher et al. (2012) found that students with high levels of interest invested more time and effort in learning, applied more effective learning strategies, and reached better academic achievement (Lohbeck, Nitkowski, & Petermann, 2016).
There has been several researchers whom have done studies on test anxiety. Entering third grade can bring up anxiety due to state exams and new material in which students must acquire. This current study examines the possibility that students in third grade go through anxiety due to exams.
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