ABSTRACT
Three major research foci can be discerned from the voluminous literature on test anxiety which, in effect, track the temporal course of anxiety in its various relationships to achievement behavior, from the test-preparation phase, to test-taking itself, and finally to the inevitable self-evaluative reactions to test outcome. As to the first of these emphases, it is clear that anxiety predates the event of test-taking as reflected in the amount, timing, and quality of test preparation (Becker, 1982). For example, Culler & Holahan (1980) propose a learning deficit model suggesting that high-anxious individuals have ineffectual study habits which lead to deficiencies in test preparation such that these students exhibit less task involvement despite describing themselves as spending more time studying than do low-anxious students (Vagt & Kühn, 1976), and often appear to sabotage their own study efforts through procrastination and other self-defeating strategies (Beery, 1975). As to the second focus, the bulk of research over the years has centered on the effects of anxiety on performance in the immediate testing situation (for a review, see Tryon, 1980), and more recently on the mechanisms by which anxiety arousal interferes with achievement (Hagtvet, 1983; Liebert & Morris, 1967; Sarason, 1978; Wine, 1971, 1980). Generally speaking, the deficiencies underlying poor achievement among high test-anxious students appear to be attentional in nature. These individuals are easily diverted from a task orientation and are prone to self preoccupation and worry (Marlett & Watson, 1968; Stephan, Fischer, & Stein, 1983). For example, test-anxious persons worry about their performance, speculate about how well others are doing, and wonder if they are falling behind, all to the neglect of the task at hand. The third and least studied focus concerns the nature and causes of anxiety elicited by test-failure feedback. While little is known about such anxiety reactions, we suspect that they may be associated with self-perceptions of inability that invariably accompany failure (Covington & Omelich, 1982 a).
