EFFECTS OF COMPUTERIZED ADAPTIVE TEST ANXIETY ON NURSING LICENSURE EXAMINATION (TEST ANXIETY).
Contributors: University of Missouri--Columbia.
Published: 1993
Number of pages: 127
Subjects: Education, Tests and Measurements.; Education, Educational Psychology.; Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: Purpose of study. This study was to determine if nursing candidates for licensure experienced an increase in anxiety due to the administration of an examination by computerized adaptive testing (CAT). A second purpose was to discover if certain groups were "at risk" of experiencing computer test anxiety.

Method. This study was a two-group, experimental design conducted concurrently with the CAT-NCLEX simulation. The National Council of State Boards of Nursing selected practical nursing graduates and repeat examinees to participate in a field test of the Computerized Adaptive Testing of the National Council Licensure Examination for Practical Nurses (NCLEX-PN). The experimental group for this study participated in the CAT simulation activity prior to taking NCLEX-PN and the control group did so after NCLEX-PN.

Both groups completed a 17 item Self-Report Anxiety Questionnaire. The responses were summed; the total score was considered to be a measure of anxiety.

Findings. Analysis of the data indicated that there was no statistically significant difference in computer test anxiety between the two groups. This is not to infer that there was no computer test anxiety expressed but rather that there was virtually no difference in the level of anxiety reported by the experimental group and the control group.

Further analysis of data indicated that persons with previous computer experience reported higher levels of computer test anxiety than those without previous computer experience and that females reported themselves as experiencing higher levels of computer test anxiety than did males. The results did not indicate that minorities experienced higher levels of computer test anxiety than non-minority groups. Lastly, there was no correlation between nursing grade point average or age and levels of computer test anxiety.

Conclusion. Participation in a computerized testing simulation did not affect the level of computer test anxiety. The only groups to experience higher levels of computer test anxiety are females and those with previous computer experience.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-09, Section: A, page: 3410.

Thesis (ED.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI - COLUMBIA, 1993.

School code: 0133.