The influence of anxiety on students' academic performance during test-taking at Kuwait University

Abstract

The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between test anxiety (low, moderate, and high) and student performance on three dependent variables: GPA, midterm score, and final exam score. Four hundred forty-six full-time undergraduates from Kuwait University participated in this study during the spring semester of 1997. The Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI) scale was used to assess anxiety level in general and in both cognitive (worry) and emotional components, specifically. There were a number of major findings attributable to this study. The most important and unexpected finding was that there was no difference that can be accounted for by either cognitive (worry) or emotional components on the TAI for student test performance on the final exam. Other results show that overall, both female and male low anxious students rank higher in their GPA than moderate and high anxious students. However, low anxious female students' GPA ranks higher than low anxious male students' GPA. The findings also demonstrate that male sophomore students performed better on the final exam than all other students at all levels. In comparing the difference between the colleges, students in other colleges performed better than the College of Education students on the final exam. This may be due to unequal sample size for other colleges compared to the College of Education. Although not significant, another interesting pattern emerged when a covariate analysis was used to control for past performance as indicated by the GPA. When analyzing female and male students separately, the results indicate that higher anxious male and moderate anxious female students perform better than low and moderate anxious males and low and high anxious females in the final test exam. Without controlling for the GPA, there is no difference between test anxiety and midterm and final exam score. Finally, the results also show that the TAI scale is a reliable measure for assessing student anxiety level.