TEST ANXIETY AND THE GRE GENERAL TEST

Donald E. Powers

GRE Board Professional Report No. 83-17P ETS Research Report 86-45

December 1986

This report presents the findings of a research project funded by and carried out under the auspices of the Graduate Record Examinations Board.

Test Anxiety and the GRE General Test

Donald E. Powers

GRE Board Professional Report No. 83-17P

December I.986

Copyright @ 1986 by Educational Testing Service. All rights reserved.

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank the members of the GRE Research Committee for helpful suggestions; Inge Novatkoski for programming the analyses; Ruth Ekstrom, Winton Manning, Craig Mills, Lawrence Stricker, and Spencer Swinton for helpful reviews of the report.

Abstract

survey was designed and administered to a large, stratified sample of GRE test takers in order to:

(a) provide baseline data regarding the prevalence and severity of test anxiety among GRE test takers

(b) determine the relationship of self-reported test anxiety to GRE test performance and to examinees knowledge/perceptions of selected aspects of GRE test taking and graduate admissions, and

(c) obtain GRE test takers assessments of the contribution of various factors to test anxiety, as well as suggestions for minimizing test anxiety.

The survey instrument included a test anxiety inventory as well as other questions seeking information about examinees perceptions of various aspects of GRE test taking and graduate admissions. Minority test takers in each of seven ethnic or racial categories were oversampled.

A significant proportion of GRE test takers report that they experience at least a moderate degree of test anxiety, and some report relatively severe anxiety. On average, however, GRE examinees do not appear to be substantially more anxious about GRE test taking than about a number of other evaluative situations.

Two aspects of test anxiety--worry, i.e., cognitive concern over test performance, and emotionality, i.e., reports of physiological reactions-were found to be very strongly related, but distinguishable by virtue of their different patterns of correlations with other variables, including GRE General Test scores. Examinee self-reports of both worry and emotionality were moderately related to test performance on each section of the GRE General Test, with higher anxiety associated with lower test performance. (These relationships were essentially identical for each ethnic or racial group considered.) Worry was more strongly related than emotionality to test performance, and, when they were considered together, only worry remained highly related to test performance. Although the relationship is clear, these results do not establish a direction of causality, i.e., whether anxiety impairs test performance, whether poor test performance increases anxiety, or whether both test anxiety and test performance are affected by some other factors. Nor do the results establish the levels at which test anxiety may facilitate rather than debilitate test taking.

Examinees' knowledge of certain aspects of GRE test taking (e.g., how to cancel test scores) and their perceptions of graduate schools (e-g., their reliance on GRE scores in admission decisions) showed slight correlations with test anxiety. Examinees also perceived a number of other factors as contributing to test anxiety. These included, for example, the pressures of a timed test and the attitudes of test administrators. The conclusion was reached that test anxiety is both prevalent enough and severe enough among GRE test takers to warrant the continuing attention of the GRE Program. Anumberof suggestions were made for further research, which would involve determining whether or not some of the correlates of test anxiety that were identified may also be causes.

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Test Anxiety and the GRE General Test

Test anxiety is one of the most frequently studied constructs in educational and psychological measurement, competing only with test bias for top billing as the villain in the melodrama of standardized testing (Anderson & Sauser, 1977). Wildemuth (1977), for example, annotated more than 200 studies of test anxiety that were conducted from 1970 to 1977, and listed a comparable number of investigations that were completed before 1970. Reviews by Anderson and Sauser (1977) and by Tryon (1980) have covered both the measurement and treatment of anxiety, and Sarason (1980) has devoted a complete book to various aspects of the topic. Perhaps the most striking indication of the continued interest in test anxiety, however, is the establishment in 1980 of the Society for Test Anxiety Research (STAR), which held its first international conference in December 1980 (Schwarzer, Vander Rloeg, and Spielberger, 1982).

As might be expected, a good deal has been learned from all of this interest in test anxiety, some of which has implications for helping test-anxious examinees. Among the results are such findings as these:

(a) highly test anxious individuals are likely to have a negative self-preoccupation that is readily elicited in evaluative situations (Wine, 1980, p. 371)

(b) the negative effects of test anxiety probably result more from ineffective cognitive strategies than from affective/physiological reactions (Dusek, 1980)

(c) the attention of highly anxious test takers is often directed away from the test, resulting in a lower proportion of time and energy being devoted to the task (Sarason, 1960). In contrast, low test-anxious individuals are more likely to be concerned with the demands of the test situation and with ways of meeting these demands (Wine, 1980)

(d) with respect to the treatment of test anxiety, the evidence suggests that cognitively based strategies (e.g., giving attention-directing instructions) are more effective than emotionality-based techniques (such as desensitization and biofeedback) in reducing anxiety and in facilitating cognitive performance (Deffenbacher, 1980; Wine, 1980)

Yet, with all the interest in test anxiety, relatively little effort has been directed to understanding the role that test anxiety plays in standardized admission testing, especially at the advanced levels of higher education, where differences in (a) the population of examinees, (b) the content and format of the exam, and (c) the importance of the test to examinees may moderate the conclusions of research. Most test anxiety research has focused on intelligence

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IQ tests. A few studies (e.g., Alpert & Haber, 1960; Sarason, 1957; and Sarason & Mandler, 1952) have examined the relationship of test anxiety to Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores. In an especially carefully designed study, French (1962) administered sections of the SAT under both standard and relaxed conditions, finding small and inconsistent effects of test anxiety on SAT performance by sex and by test section.

At the graduate level, apparently even less research has been conducted on test anxiety. Deffenbacher (1977) studied the performance of students taking the Miller Analogies Test (MAT), which is used in graduate admissions, and found (unexpectedly) that this test generated less anxiety than did college classroom tests. There does not seem to have been any formal study of the GRE tests.

Accordingly, the major objectives of the study were to:

(a)

W

w

provide baseline data regarding the prevalence and severity of test anxiety among GRE General Test takers and among several subgroups of examinees

determine the relationship of test anxiety to test performance and to examinees knowledge and perceptions of selected aspects of GRE test taking and

obtain GRE test takers assessments various factors to test anxiety, as suggestions for minimizing the test

and graduate admissions,

of the contribution of well as their anxiety they may

experience when taking the GRE General Test.

Method

Instruments

Test anxiety. Several of the more widely used measures of test anxiety were reviewed for their suitability for this study. Appropriateness for graduate level students, ease of administration, reliability and validity, and ease of adaptation were the primary selection criteria. The measures included the Test Anxiety Scale (Sarason, 1978), the Achievement Anxiety Scale (Alpert & Haber, 1960), the Test Anxiety Questionnaire (Mandler & Sarason, 1952), the Suinn Test Anxiety Behavior Scale (Suinn, 1969), and several others that, upon preliminary inspection, seemed far less suitable. Al though none of the measures was judged entirely appropriate, one instrument, the Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI) (Spielberger, 1980), came closer than others to meeting the requirements of the study.

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The TAI, an abbreviated version of the much-studied Test Anxiety Scale, has itself been well researched. Reported test-retest reliabilities range from .62 to .81, and internal consistency reliability estimates are in the .9Os. Moreover, its correlations with a variety of aptitude, achievement, and personality measures have been reported, and some normative data are available for several groups of examinees, including college undergraduates. with respect to validity, Spielberger (1980) has reported that correlations of the TAI with six other anxiety measures range from 54 to .86 for males and from .34 to .85 for females. Finally, the instrument could be adapted relatively easily for GRE examinees, and it could be self-administered in about 10 minutes.

Accordingly, the 'IIAI was modified (with the permission of the publisher, Consulting Psychologist Press) along the following lines. Individual items we