ABSTRACT
The literature abounds with studies on test anxiety, but there is little research on the experience of anger and other emotions in examinations and other achievement-related situations. This chapter reports the findings of a series of studies of lower secondary school and university students from Austria, Singapore, and the United States who were asked to report their experience of anger and anxiety during tests. Following the second author's state-trait distinction, trait measures of examination anger and anxiety were administered during regular classroom periods, and state measures of these emotions were administered immediately after written tests. In a second series of studies, three intelligence/aptitude tests were administered to Austrian and U.S. university students, who were instructed to rate the intensity of their feelings, including anger and anxiety, at the beginning of the experiment and immediately after each intelligence test. In all 11 studies, anger and anxiety emerged as distinct but correlated factors. During examination situations, some subjects frequently experienced intense anger while others experienced more intense anger. Like test anxiety, “test anger” appears to hinder effective test taking behavior.
