ABSTRACT
Social scientists have studied the relationship between anxiety and performance for well over 50 years (Lazarus, Deese, & Osler, 1952). The motivational and interference qualities of anxiety have been demonstrated in diverse areas such as reaction time (Grice, 1955), persuasion (Janis, 1955), drive level (Spence, Farber, & McFann, 1956), performance under stress (Westrope, 1953), verbal conditioning (Spielberger, DeNike, & Stein, 1965), and learning (Nicholson, 1958; Sarason, Mandler, & Craighill, 1952). The negative relationship between anxiety and performance, especially on learning tasks, was the genesis of a rich line of educational research concerning psychological drives associated with learning situations and types of performance. Test anxiety (TA) investigations are the descendents of this tradition, and TA research embraces a range of issues from cognitive interference in processing information in testing situations (Sarason, 1986), to academic self-concept and achievement motivation (Marsh, 1993), to
treatment protocols designed to improve educational performance (Hembree, 1988; Seipp, 1991).
