EFFECTS OF ANXIETY ON QUANTITY OF EXAMINATION PREPARATION

ROY MARTIN AND JOEL MEYERS

Temple Unwersity

The American educational system generally assumes that students spend time outside the classroom learning course material presented during instruction time. The importance of this student behavior in the educational process js attested to by teachers who cite poor homework performance or a lack of examination prep- aration as a primary cause of student failure. Despite its apparent importance, there has been little research into the variables that affect out-of-class preparation.

Marwardt and Sikkink (1970) found student classification (freshman, graduate, etc.) and the amount of reading material assigned in a course to be related positively to quantity of out-of-class preparation in college students. Mawhinney, Bostow, Laws, Blumenfeld, and Hopkins (1971) studied the effect of testing schedules on student preparation and found that daily testing produced the highest and most consistent rates of out-of-class preparation. On the other hand, less frequent testing (once every 7 days or longer) produced sporadic effort and lower daily rates of preparation. Martin (1970) investigated the relationship between anxiety asso- ciated with an upcoming examination and study for that examination. He used advanced graduate students who were preparing for doctoral qualifying examina- tions and found that the total amount of study during the last 2 weeks prior to the examination correlated negatively (T = - .55) with the level of state anxiety during that period.

The results of Martin’s study are of considerable theoretical interest in that they provide an alternative explanation for the oft-reported negative relationship between anxiety and examination performance (Davidson, 1959; Hill & Sarason, 1966; Sarason, Hill & Zimbardo, 1964; Spielberger, 1966). The reduction in examina- tion performance for high anxious students usually is interpreted as a result of detrimental effects of anxiety manifest during performance of the examination. Another explanation can be offered that is based on the assumption that anxiety manifest during the examination correlates positively with anxiety manifest during preparation for the examination. That is, if there is a negative correlation between anxiety and preparation, then negative correlations between anxiety and perform- ance on examination could result as much from a reduction in quantity of prepara- tion due to anxiety manifest during preparation as from a reduction in performance due to anxiety manifest a t the time of the examination.

The negative relationship between anxiety and quantity of preparation reported by Martin was obtained on a small number of Ss who were preparing for doctoral qualifying examinations. There is every reason to believe that this examination was more stressful than most educational examinations. Thus, it was the purpose of the present study to replicate the earlier investigation with a larger sample size in more typical classroom examination circumstances.

METHOD Subjects

One hundred female, undergraduate, elementary education majors a t the University of Texas at Austin served as Ss. All were enrolled in a one-semester mathematics course that had a reputation among the students as being academically

218 ROY MARTIN AND JOEL MEYERS

demanding. This situation was chosen to insure that the final course examination would be at least moderately stressful. The Ss were in five different sections of the course, three of which were under one instructor and two under another. However, both instructors followed the same general curriculum, and all students took the same departmental examination at the termination of the course.

Procedure Ss were contacted during class time 5 days prior to their respective final exami-

nations. Ss were told that they would be asked to participate in a study of the relationship between anxiety about an upcoming examination and the amount of study for that examination. After this brief explanation of the study, the Ss were administered the Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, Gorsuch, & Lushene, 1969) followed by a short form of the State Anxiety Inventory (O’Neil, Spielberger, & Hansen, 1969). Ss were asked to respond to the items on the Trait Anxiety Inventory in terms of how they generally feel, which yielded a score that indicated their general level of anxiety. 8s were asked to respond to the items on the State Anxiety Inventory in terms of how they felt about their upcoming examination, which produced a score that reflected their anxiety about the upcoming examination.

When these inventories had been completed, the Trait Anxiety Inventory was collected. The State Anxiety Inventory was attached to a booklet that contained four additional copies of this questionnaire. Ss were instructed to take this booklet home and on each day of the remaining 4 days prior to the examination to respond to one of the copies of the inventory. Ss also were asked to record in spaces provided in the booklet the amount of time that they studied for their examination each day. It was suggested that the anxiety inventory should be filled out a t the end of each day when the quantity of study was recorded. Since the Ss already had responded to the state anxiety instrument on the first day, only the quantity of study had to be recorded that evening.

The test booklet was collected on the day of the examination. Cooperation was encouraged by offering 5 additional points on the examination if the forms were completed and returned on the day of the test.

RESULTS Since Ss were drawn from five different classes, a one-way analysis of variance

was calculated across the five classes for each variable of the study, i e . , trait anxiey, mean state anxiety for the 5-day period prior to the examination, mean quantity of study reported for the 5-day period prior to the examination, and performance scores on the examination. In no case was a significant F ratio obtained, so it was assumed that the samples were drawn from the same population. Thus, results are reported for the sample as a whole.

The general question that guided this resarch was, “What is the relationship between anxiety manifest prior to an examination and the quantity of study for that examination?” The study was designed specifically to answer three questions related to this general one. First, “What is the relationship between trait anxiety (a general predisposition to be anxious) and the quantity of examination prepara- tion?” To answer this question the mean quantity of study reported by each S was calculated by summing the quantity of study reported on each of the 5 days

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prior to the examination and dividing by 5. The Pearson product-moment correla- tion between this quantity and trait anxiety was found to be .29 ( p = .Ol).

The second question asked was, “What is the relationship between state anxiety manifest during the preparation period and the quantity of study during that period?” A mean state anxiety score and mean quantity of study were cal- culated for each S by summing each variable across the 5 days of the preparation period and dividing by 5. The resulting correlation was .54 ( p = .Ol).

The final question about the relationship between ailxiety and examiiiation preparation focused on chages in these variables across time, ie., “What is the pattern of change in state anxiety scores across the 5 days of the preparation period and the pattern of study across the same period, and what is the relationship between these two patterns?” Alean anxiety scores and quantities of study were calculated for each of the 5 days prior to the examination. Mean state anxiety scores were 7.48, 7.52, 8.53, 9.64, and 12.07 for the fifth through first days prior to the examination. Mean levels of study for the same period (in hours) were .17, .43, .79, 1.71, and 4.52. Repeated measures analysis of variance indicated that the increase in anxiety was significant (F = 49.8; df 4/396, p < .OOl), as was the increase in study behavior (F = 112.3; df 4/396, p < .OOl). The Tukey HSD multiple comparison test revealed that for both study and anxiety the means for days four and five were significantly different from all other means. Thus, there was little change in either variable early in the preparation period, but during the last 2 days prior to the examination both variables increased dramatically. By inspection it is clear that changes in anxiety were paralleled to a striking degree by changes in quantity of study. The correlation between these variables, within the limits of rounding error, was found to be 1.00.

In summary, both state and trait anxiety were significantly correlated in a positive direction with quantity of study prior to the examination. The relation- ship between state anxiety and quantity of study was highly significant whether considered across time or across Ss.

Although not the primary focus of the study, several other results are note- worthy. First, it generally is assumed that out-of-class preparation facilitates test performance. However, a correlation of -.15 between quantity of study and performance was obtained. This correlation is not significantly different from zero, which indicates that quantity of study during the last few days prior to the examina- tion had little relationship to performance.

Second, state anxiety correlated negatively with performance (T = - .35; p < .Ol). The hypothesis was advanced at the beginning of this paper that the negative relationship between state anxiety and performance on academic examina- tions that is generally reported could result from a negative correlation between quantity of study and anxiety during the preparation period and a positive cor- relation between study and performance. If this ocurred a negative correlation between state anxiety manifest during the preparation period and performance would be found. This negative relationship was found, but cannot be explained by the hypothesized causal chain, because a positive correlation was found between state anxiety and study, and study had no relationship to performance. The only explanation of the negative relationship between state anxiety and performance that seems to fit the data is that state anxiety manifest during the preparation period

220 ROY MARTIN AND JOEL MEYERS

correlated positively with state anxiety manifest a t the time of performance, which in turn was related negatively to performance. No measure of state anxiety a t the time of the examination was obtained, however, so this interpretation cannot be checked directly.

The final relationship worthy of note was the .40 correlation between average state anxiety during the preparation period and trait anxiety. This correlation approximates closely the relationship between trait and state anxiety reported by Spielberger, et al. (1969), who found correlations that ranged from .44 to .55 for undergraduate females.

DISCUSSION The major finding of this study was that anxiety manifest during the period

of preparation for an examination was significantly positively related to out-of-class preparation for that examination. This significant positive correlation is in direct opposition to the significant negative correlation of the same magnitude found in an earlier study by Martin (1970). However, this difference may be due to the different levels of anxiety generated in the two test situations. While extremely high levels of anxiety were associated with the doctoral level examination, relatively moderate levels of anxiety were associated with final exams in an undergraduate course. It may be that as anxiety increases from a very low level to a moderate level (as was the case for this study), quantity of preparation increases; but as anxiety increases to an extremely high level (as was the case for the earlier study), preparation decreases. This pattern receives conceptual support in that it is similar to the inverted U-shaped pattern that Malmo (1966) has hypothesized with regard to anxiety and task performance.

This study also found that quantity of study had a near-zero relationship with performance on the examination, while the earlier study found a significant positive correlation between these two variables. This inconsistency may be explained by the fact that in the qualifying examination situation each student engaged in weeks of preparation, while in the present situation only a few hours of study were involved.

This result, if supported by replication, would have clear implications for educational practice. To the extent that semester examinations are given to stimu- late out-of-class preparation, the examination could be omitted from the instruc- tional program with no loss in knowledge acquisition. Deletion of such examina- tions would have the positive effects of alleviating significant student discomforts and reducing instructional cost in terms of teacher time and effort.

This argument does not lead to the conclusion that examinations cannot be used t o induce significant out-of-class preparation. The results for doctoral students reported above indicate that if the cost of failure is high and/or the probability of failure is high, high rates of preparation are produced. High rates also can be pro- duced by scheduling frequent examinations (Mawhinney, et d., 1971). These findings do indicate that the educator should reexamine carefully his rationale for testing and adjust his testing schedule accordingly.

As was mentioned in the introduction, two hypotheses can be considered when one is attempting to explain the traditionally obtained negative correlation between anxiety manifest a t the time of an examination and performance. The first and most prominent explanation is that a high level of anxiety manifest a t the

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time of performance decreases performance through the activation of competing responses. The other states that those persons who are anxious at the time of the examination probably also would be anxious during the period of preparation for the examination. Thus, if a negative correlation were obtained between anxiety manifest during the preparation period and study during that period, then the negative correlation could result from poorer examination preparation. This latter hypothesis was not supported by the present study. First, state anxiety manifest during the preparation period correIated positively with study rather than negatively. Second, study was not related to performance. These results, in combination with the results of Martin’s earlier study, seem to indicate that anxiety manifest during the period of preparation for an examination has a detrimental effect on quantity of study, and consequently performance, only in extremely stressful situations with long preparation periods.

It should be noted, finally, that this research suffered from several methodol- ogical weaknesses. Primarily, there was no assurance that quantity of study was recorded accurately or that the anxiety inventories were completed by all Ss in a serious, forthright manner and at the times requested by the experimenter. Such lack of procedural control, however, is a consequence of recording changes in the states of human Ss for long periods of time, unless severe demands can be made on these 8s. Such demands rarely can be made in research carried out in natural settings. For this reason, few attempts have been made to monitor changes in anxiety over periods of time longer than a few hours in naturally occurring stress situations. I n the present case, the exploratory nature of the study and its potential utility seemed to justify the research despite its mehodological difficulties.

477 Ritter Hall School Psychology Department Temple University Philadelphia, Pa 19122

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