Test anxiety and other variables that influence the performance achieved in educational competitions
Test anxiety and other variables that influence the performance achieved in educational competitions

Summary/Abstract: Research has repeatedly demonstrated how test anxiety is negatively associated with variables such as performance, academic achievement, and intellectual aptitude tests. The objective of the present study was to investigate the existing relationships between self-efficacy, self-esteem, test anxiety, and performance in academic competitions to which 253 high school students took part. We have also been interested in the role that some variables have (like gender, academic achievement - GPA, and the number of hours/day allocated to training for the competition) in the relationship between test anxiety and competition’s performance. The results suggest that there are negative correlations between test anxiety and self-efficacy, self-esteem and the number of hours/day allocated to the training. What is noteworthy, however, is that self-efficacy, self-esteem and the number of hours / day allocated to the training proved to be negative predictors of test anxiety, and these variables justify 26% of the variance of test anxiety. Multiple regression has shown that self-esteem mediates the relationship between test anxiety and performance, in the sense that a high level of test anxiety leads to affect self-esteem, which in turn has a negative effect on performance.

• Details
• Contents