The Research Desk
Test anxiety harms all aspects of students' well-being, impacting emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishments.
Cognitive test anxiety and student well-being: An examination of bidirectional effects.
- Positive emotion
- Engagement
Chue, K., Lee, Y., Dutt, A.
In plain language
This study explores the impact of cognitive test anxiety on students' well-being, specifically through the lens of the PERMA model, which includes Positive emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment. Conducted with a large sample of students in Singapore, the research used a longitudinal approach to examine how test anxiety influences these well-being domains over time.
The findings reveal that test anxiety has a negative effect on all aspects of students' subjective well-being as defined by PERMA. Interestingly, while test anxiety was found to predict lower well-being in the future, the reverse was not true; well-being did not predict changes in test anxiety levels.
Key findings
- Test anxiety at the first time point predicted lower levels of all five PERMA well-being domains at the second time point.
- There was no significant evidence that well-being levels predicted future test anxiety.
- The study emphasizes the unidirectional impact of test anxiety on well-being, rather than a reciprocal relationship.
Why it matters
This research underscores the importance of addressing test anxiety as it can significantly undermine students' overall well-being, affecting their emotions, engagement in activities, relationships, sense of meaning, and accomplishments.
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Educators and parents can focus on early interventions to help students manage test anxiety, potentially improving their overall well-being and academic experience. Techniques such as stress management, mindfulness, and cognitive-behavioral strategies may be beneficial in reducing test anxiety's impact.