Colleagues from Bryan College of Health Sciences recently conducted a study exploring the effectiveness of anxiety-reducing techniques in alleviating the experience of cognitive test anxiety. Their study is one of the first to use test anxiety severity standards to demonstrate that practicing select anxiety-reducing techniques can lead to meaningful reductions in test anxiety. A complete…
This study explored factors with the potential to exert facilitative and debilitative influence on undergraduate students’ academic performance. Participants responded to the Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale, COPE inventory, and Cognitive Test Anxiety Scale-Revised and agreed to have their responses paired with institutional performance data. Analyses tested the iterative and collective influence of the identified variables…
The purpose of the current examination was to preliminarily suggest severity standards for the recently revised Cognitive Test Anxiety Scale–Second Edition (CTAS-2). Participants responded to the CTAS-2, Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ), and FRIEDBEN Test Anxiety Scale. Using both latent class and cluster analyses, we were able to classify participants as belonging to one…
This chapter provides an excellent overview as to how to effectively plan and write empirical articles. Link to chapter: http://dbem.ws/WritingArticle.pdf
Abstract:The United States is currently not producing enough graduates in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields to meet the demands of a technology-dependent society. Although there are many efforts in place to improve STEM education The United States is currently not producing enough graduates in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields to meet…
Abstract: Educational accountability policies have led to a growth in the use of high-stakes examinations for a number of important educational decisions, including the evaluation of teacher effectiveness. As such, educators are under increasing pressure to raise student test performance. In an attempt to prepare students for a high-stakes exam, teachers often resort to using…
Abstract: Two laboratory and two randomized field experiments tested a psychological intervention designed to improve students’ scores on high-stakes exams and to increase our understanding of why pressure-filled exam situations undermine some students’ performance. We expected that sitting for an important exam leads to worries about the situation and its consequences that undermine test performance….
In an era of test-based accountability, there has been a renewed interest in understanding the relationship between test anxiety and test performance. The development and validation of test anxiety scales have grown with the rise of test anxiety research. Research is needed to critically examine the psychometric properties of these scales prior to widespread use….
Abstract: A measure of mathematics anxiety, the Mathematics Anxiety Rat- ing Scale (MARS) has been a major scale used for research and clinical studies since 1972. Despite the usefulness of the original scale, researchers have sought a 5horter version of the scale partly to reduce the administration time of the original 96.1tem scale. This study…
We examined the relation between pressure- induced performance decrements, or ‘‘choking under pressure,’’ in mathematical problem solving and individ- ual differences in working memory capacity. In cognitively based academic skills such as math, pressure is thought to harm performance by reducing the working memory ca- pacity available for skill execution. Results demonstrated that only individuals…
The Cognitive Test Anxiety Scale – Short Form is a 17 – item revision to the original Cognitive Test Anxiety Scale (CTAS). Psychometric analyses of the original CTAS revealed that the inclusion of reverse-coded items produced an unintended factor (Test Confidence). Therefore, the Cognitive Test Anxiety Scale – Short Form was created by removing reverse-coded…
The Cognitive Test Anxiety Scale (CTAS) is a 27 – item measure designed to assess the cognitive indicators of test anxiety across the preparation and performance phases of the learning test cycle. Click here for the instrument: Cognitive Test Anxiety Scale
The Perceived Test Threat scale is an 18 – item measure designed to assess learners’ perceptions of upcoming tests. Specifically, the scale was designed to determine if learners’ perceived upcoming test as threatening either due to the difficulty of the content or personal barriers to success. Click here for the instrument Perceived Test Threat
Next Session: Thursday, October 27, 2016, 3:30 – 5:00 PM in TC 217 During this drop-in session, AARC members and affiliates will be working on developing web-based content, videos, and brochures to support upcoming intervention efforts designed to support students suffering from academic anxiety. We will also be discussing upcoming theoretical and applied research on topics…
Christopher L. Thomas, M.A., is a doctoral student in Educational Psychology at Ball State University and a current fellow in the Research Design Studio. His areas of work include exploring the determinants of academic help-seeking behavior, the neural underpinnings of maladaptive and adaptive perfectionism, and the development of techniques to identify test anxious learners. He…
Jerrell Cassady is a professor of psychology at Ball State University. His areas of work include exploring the impact of academic anxieties (e.g., test anxiety) on learner outcomes in standard educational settings. This line of work has produced the Academic Anxiety Research Consortium, which he directs. He also has studied emergent literacy development trends with…
The research on test anxiety has repeatedly attempted to provide a more refined measurement of multiple di- dimensions of the construct. Divergence in the field has repeatedly arisen in the specific dimensions, but there is a broad acceptance that there are various manifestations of test anxiety. The current study attempts to specifically explore the potential…
Two studies examined the effects of cognitive test anxiety on students’ memory,comprehension, and understanding of expository text passages in situations without externally-imposed evaluative pressure. The results gathered through structural equations modelling demonstrated a significant impact of cognitive test anxiety on performance in conditions with and without external evaluative pressure. The impact of cognitive test anxiety…
A new Spanish version of the Cognitive Test Anxiety Scale (CTAS) was created to be used explicitly with Argentinean university students. The scale was translated and verified through blind back translation and given to a large sample of students majoring in psychology or chemistry (N = 752). Exploratory Factor Analysis (N = 376) showed an…
A new measure that focused explicitly on the cognitive dimension of test anxiety was introduced and examined for psychometric quality as compared to existing measures of test anxiety. The new scale was found to be a reliable and valid measure of cognitive test anxiety. The impact of cognitive test anxiety as well as emotionality and…