Test anxiety and beliefs about testing in college students with and without learning disabilities

• Main Author: Stevens, Seth Aaron
• Language: ENG
• Published: ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst 2000
• Subjects: Educational evaluation|Psychotherapy|Educational psychology
• Online Access: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9978560

Differences in beliefs about, reactions to, and perceived control over testing between learning disabled and non learning disabled students at the postsecondary level were investigated. Additionally, the effect of the use of support services by students with LD on their beliefs about and reactions to testing was also investigated. Students with and without LD were given published measures of test anxiety and academic locus of control, as well as survey questionnaires/scales created for the study. Additional information on students' with LD diagnoses and use of support services was gathered from archival data. Results indicated that students with LD reported significantly higher levels of test anxiety, particularly test irrelevant thinking, than their non-LD peers. Students with and without LD also differed significantly in their anxiety ratings of particular evaluation conditions, academic subject areas, and modifications to the testing environment. An external academic locus of control was found to be related significantly to higher test anxiety for all students. For students with LD, use of support services was not related to test anxiety. High levels of test anxiety were found to be related to reported avoidance of testing intensive courses and subject areas for all students. Females consistently scored significantly higher than males on all generalized measures of anxiety. Findings suggest that test anxiety is a phenomenon that varies both quantitatively and qualitatively as a function of individual differences in academic history, areas of academic strength and need, and as a function of specific aspects of the test situation (e.g., subject area testing is being conducted in, presence of distractions); in addition to its well documented negative effects on test performance, test anxiety may also have long term effects on academic and career choices. Support services appear to be perceived as useful by anxious students, however, utilization of such services does not appear to mitigate generalized text anxiety, though use of such services is related to higher GPA. Based on study findings, a variety of possible modifications to the testing environment and to classroom grading procedures at the postsecondary level are suggested.