Test Anxiety and Positive and Negative Emotional States during an Examination

ABSTRACT Within the framework of a transactional approach to test anxiety (Spielberger & Vagg, 1995; Zeidner, 1998), the current study examined the relations among trait test anxiety and positive and negative state emotions, comprising prospective (e.g., hope and fear) as well as retrospective emotions (e.g., happiness, disappointment) before and after a high school examination. In line with our hypotheses, test anxiety was related to all state emotions before the examination, but independent of the equivalent states thereafter. Instead, post-examination state emotions were strongly related to congruent states before the examination. Prospective emotions were more strongly related than retrospective ones before the examination, but vice versa thereafter. On both measurement points, concurrent emotions of the same valence (positive vs. negative) were stronger related than states of opposite valence. Implications for further research on the temporal relations between test anxiety and state emotions are discussed. KEYWORDS: test anxiety, hope, fear, happiness, high school examination, longitudinal study. A variety of studies have investigated the quality, intensity and interrelations of test anxiety and accompanying emotional states over the course of an examination (for a review see Zeidner, 1998). However, empirical evidence for systemic changes in temporal relation patterns is still sparse which is accounted mainly by three reasons. First, the majority of studies focused only on a dissection of temporal change patterns among concurrent states of discrete negative and positive emotions (e.g., Carver & Scheier, 1994; Folkman & Lazarus, 1985). Second, most research failed to include measures of test anxiety which left the questions unanswered (i) whether test anxiety is differentially related to qualitatively distinct state emotions, and (ii) to which extent the magnitude of relation may change over time. To address these shortcomings, subsequent research combined measures of test anxiety and multiple state emotion assessments (Bossong, 1999; Endler, Kantor, & Parker, 1994; Zohar, 1998). Constituting the third problem, however, all of these studies were restricted to state anxiety assessments, while (iii) relations between test anxiety and positive state emotions, and (iv) a differentiation of temporal relation patterns for positive and negative emotions remained unaddressed. In response to these limitations, the current study combines an assessment of test anxiety as a situation-specific trait with multiple assessments of positive and negative state emotions before and right after a high school examination. The purpose of the study is thus to investigate (a) whether test anxiety is differentially related to positive and negative state emotions, (b) if possible differences in relation patterns before and after an examination exist, and (c) to which extent the strength of relation may vary over time. To our understanding, an identification of systemic relation patterns would extend empirical evidence for the validity of the transactional model of test-related emotions (Smith & Ellsworth, 1987; Smith & Lazarus, 1991; Spielberger & Vagg, 1995). In particular, our study could provide first empirical evidence that the assumptions of the transactional model also hold for positive emotions, differentiate the compensating effects of accompanying appraisals for distinct positive and negative affective states, and foster our understanding of debilitating as well as facilitating aspects of test anxiety when it comes to related emotional outcomes. In the long run, study findings may enhance development and application of interventions for exam-related counseling and student preparation. Examples comprise the use of cognitive reframing to elicit hope and confidence at different stages of an upcoming examination. The transactional model of test-related emotions To disentangle the relations among test anxiety and test-related emotions, researchers conceptualized an examination period in terms of distinct stages (Folkman & Lazarus, 1985). …