Impact of Test Anxiety on Test Scores of Pre-service Teachers in Northern Cyprus

Abstract

A lot has been written with regards to the subject of anxiety and its role on influencing learning outcomes yet it seems the issue of anxiety is continuously debated by research and academic scholars. While teachers may think that issues of anxiety in education are either overhyped or overemphasized, learners think otherwise. To analyze the views of the preservice teacher on the concept of test anxiety especially on its influence on the academic performance of students, a mixed research design was adopted for this study. An experimental approach followed by semi-structured interviews were used to elicit information on the impact of test anxiety on the academic performance. A total of 42 participants were purposively chosen which were divided into 2 groups, A (control group) and B (experimental group). A reliable and validated post-test was administered where there was an induced stress on the experimental group before commencing an examination. The findings of this study argued that though test anxiety affected students test scores to a large extent, other possible factors were responsible for learner’s test scores as well. The study suggests the need for rethinking ways through which examinations are organized to reduce incidence of test anxiety among test takers. The major limitation of the study was the small sample size. Thus, the use of a larger sample for future researches must be considered.

Keywords

• anxiety
• test anxiety
• academic performance
• measurement and evaluation
• test scores
• north cyprus