Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-pkt8n Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-17T02:13:58.806Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Interaction between Anxiety and Perceived Difficulty of Task in Assessment Situations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2015

R.N. Paddle
R.N. Paddle*
Affiliation:
Institute of Catholic Education, Oakleigh, Australia
Get access

Extract

The study of interactions between anxiety and other performance related variables was first carefully documented with the Manifest Anxiety Scale (Taylor, 1951) used in paired associate learning tasks. Reviews of this literature have shown that high anxious subjects usually perform significantly better on easy tasks, and worse on difficult tasks, than low anxious subjects (Taylor, 1958).

Later research workers concerned with anxiety in education broadly adopted interactionist approaches when confronted by consistently low negative relationships between anxiety and attainment (Cronbach & Snow, 1977; Gaudry, 1977).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Educational and Developmental Psychologist , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , May 1986 , pp. 12 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © Australian Psychological Society 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arkin, R.M., Detchon, C.S. & Maruyama, G.M. (1982). Roles of attribution, affect, and cognitive interference in test anxiety. J.Pers.Soc. Psychol. 43, 1111–1124.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Becker, P. (1982). Fear reactions and achievement behaviour of students approaching an examination. In Krohne, H.W. & Laux, L. (Eds.) Achievement, stress and anxiety. Washington: Hemisphere.Google Scholar
Boyle, G.J. (1983). Critical review of state-trait curiosity development. Motivation and Emotion, 7,377–397.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caltell, R.B. (1982). The development of Cattellian structured systems theory of personality: The VIDAS model. Zeitshrift fur Différentielle und Diagnostische Psychologie, 3, 7–25.Google Scholar
Cronbach, L.J. & Snow, R.E. (1977). Aptitudes and interactional methods. A handbook for research on interactions. New York: Irvington.Google Scholar
Gaudry, E. (1977). Studies of the effects of experimentally induced experiences of success and failure. In Spielberger, CD. & Sarason, I.G. (Eds.). Stress and anxiety (Vol. 4). Washington: Hemisphere.Google Scholar
Morris, L.W., Davis, M.A. and Hutchings, CH. (1981). Cognitive and emotional components of anxiety: literature review and a revised worry-emotionality scale. J.Ed.Psychol., 73, 541–555.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Naylor, F.D., Elsworth, G.R. & Astbury, J.A. (1980). interactions of factorial components and testing occasions in the determination of scores on the A-state scale of the state-trait anxiety inventory. Aust.J.Psychol. 32, 217–223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, J.B. & Endler, N.S. (1982). Academic examinations and anxiety: the interaction model empirically tested. J. Res. Person., 16, 303–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Renzi, D.A. (1985). Test Review: state-trait anxiety inventory. Meas. Eval. Couns. Dev. 18, 86–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sarason, S.B., Davidson, K.S., Lightall, F.F., Waite, R.R. & Ruebush, B.K. (1960). Anxiety in elementary school children. New York: John Wiley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spielberger, CD., Gonzalez, H.P., Taylor, C.J., Algaze, B. & Anton, W.D. (1978). Examination stress and test anxiety. In Spielberger, CD. & Sarason, I.G. (Eds.). Stress and anxiety (Vol. 5). Washington: Hemisphere.Google Scholar
Spielberger, CD., Gorsuch, R.L. & Lushene, R.E. (1970). STAI Manual for the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (‘Self-evaluation Questionnaire’), Test Form X, Palo Alto: Consulting Psychologists.Google Scholar
Spielberger, CD., Gorsuch, R.L. & Lushene, R., Vagg, P.R. & Jacobs, G.A. (1983). Manual for the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory STAI (Form V). Palo Alto: Consulting Psychologists Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, J.A. (1951). The Relationship of anxiety to the conditioned eyelid response, J. Exp. Psychol. 41, 81–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, J.A. (1958). The effects of anxiety level and physiological stress on verbal learning, J. Abnorm. Soc. Psychol. 57, 55–60.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tennyson, R.D. & Boutwell, R.C (1973). Pretask versus within-task anxiety measures in predicting performance on a concept acquisition task, J.Ed. Psych. 65, 88–92.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tobias, S. (1980). Anxiety and instruction, in Sarason, I.G. (Ed.) “Test Anxiety: Theory, research and applications”, Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Tryon, G.S. (1980). The measurement and treatment of test anxiety. Rev. Ed. Res., 50, 343–372.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wade, B.E. (1981a). Highly anxious pupils in formal and informal primary classrooms; the relationship between inferred coping strategies and: i – cognitive attainment. Brit. J. Ed. Psychol., 51, 39–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wade, B.E. (1981b). Highly anxious pupils in formal and informal primary classrooms; the relationship between inferred coping strategies and: ii – classroom behaviour. Brit. J. Ed. Psychol., 51, 50–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willig, A.C., Harnisch, D.L. Hill, K.T. & Maehr, M.L. (1983). Sociocultural and educational correlates of success-failure attributions and evaluation anxiety in the school setting for Black, Hispanic and Anglo children. Am. Ed. Res. J., 20, 385–410.Google Scholar