15

Test Anxiety

IRWIN G. SARASON AND BARBARA R. SARASON

Test anxiety is a situation-specific personality trait generally regarded as having

two psychological components: worry and emotional arousal. People vary with
regard to the disposition to experience these components in academic settings.
Test anxiety is an important personal and social problem for several reasons, not
the least of which is the ubiquitousness of taking tests. It is a decidedly unpleas-
ant experience, plays an important role in the personal phenomenology of many
people, and influences performance and personal development. Indices of test
anxiety reflect the personal salience of situations in which people perform tasks
and their work is evaluated.
People come to evaluative situations with their distinctive sets of personal
characteristics, inc1uding assumptions, concems, and expectations. A useful
starting point in analyzing anxiety begins with the objective properties of prob-
lematic situations and individuals' interpretations of them. Regardless of the
objective situation, it is the personal interpretation or cognitive appraisal of the
situation that leads to behavior. Someone who has failed a test, but isn't aware of
it, will not become upset. Students who feel they have performed creditably on a
test will relax and anticipate recognition for their achievements. 5tudents who
feel they have performed poorly will experience stress and see themselves as
having a problem. .
When stress is experienced, the individual feels on the spot: "What will I do
now? It's up to me, I guess." There are several types of responses to stress. The
most adaptive one is a task-oriented attitude that leads the individual to take
specific steps toward successfully coping with the stress-arousing situation.
Seeking a conference with the teacher and studying harder are two adaptive
responses to failing a test. An example of a maladaptive response is denying its
importance: "So what if I got a low grade? I can't have such bad luck next time. It
was a dumb test." The anxious response to failure is to stew about the problem,
engage in self-derogation, and anticipate future failure.
Whereas stress inheres in one's interpretation of a situation, anxiety is a
response to perceived danger and inability to handle achallenge or unfinished

IRWIN G. SARASON AND BARBARA R. SARASON • Department of Psychology, University of Wash-

ington, Seattle, Washington 98195.

475
476 IRWIN G. SARASON AND BARBARA R. SARASON

business in a satisfactory manner. Among the characteristics of anxiety are the

following:
1. The situation is seen as difficult, cha11enging, and threatening.
2. The individual sees hirnself or herself as ineffective, or inadequate, in
handling the task at hand.
3. The individual focuses on undesirable consequences of personal inade-
quacy.
4. Self-deprecatory preoccupations are strong and interfere or compete with
task-relevant cognitive activity.
5. The individual expects and anticipates failure and loss of regard by
others.
These characteristics can become linked to situations through experience.
Anxiety might be associated with any or a11 of the fo11owing: anticipating a
situation, experiencing it, and "recovering" from it. There are varied, often quite
idiosyncratic, physiological concomitants of anxiety. Both the quantity of anxiety
and the mix of situations in which it is experienced vary from person to person:
1. Anxiety can be experienced in we11-defined situations, commonly seen as
stressful, to which the individual feels unable to respond adequately.
2. It can be experienced in ambiguous situations where the individual must
structure task requirements and personal expectations.
3. It might be linked to classes of situations defined in idiosyncratic ways
(interpersonal relationships with certain groups of peers, family me m-
bers, authority figures, members of the opposite sex; situations requiring
verbal, mathematical, spatial, or motoric ski11s).
These concomitants are consistent with a view of anxiety as astate marked
by heightened self-awareness and perceived helplessness. This helplessness can
arise from inability to cope with a situational demand in a satisfactory manner,
perceived inability to understand situational demands, or uncertainty about the
consequences of inadequacy in coping. The self-preoccupations of the anxious
person, even in apparently neutral or even pleasant situations, may be due to a
history of experiences marked by a relative paucity of signals indicating that a
safe haven from danger has been reached.
The reasons for the perception of danger are various, including the stimulus
properties of situations and unrealistica11y high standards. Every teacher knows
students who, although quite able and bright, are virtua11y terror stricken at
exam time. In these ca ses, a student often expresses concern about the conse-
quences of not performing at a satisfactory level and embarrassment at what is
regarded as "failure."
Stress then is a ca11 for action determined by the properties of situations and
personal dispositions. The test-anxious person feels unable to respond to that
call. Because of similarities between the responses of test-anxious and socially
anxious individuals, it seems likely that some of the findings from the test-
anxiety literature can be of value both in analyzing the effects of social anxiety
and in understanding its meaning.
TEST ANXIETY 477

Single sentence definitions of anxiety often acknowledge its various aspects

by referring to the individual's apprehension, experience of an unpleasant emo-
tional state, and physiological reactivity. More important than acknowledging
this variety of characteristics, however, is the possibility that they may not be very
highly intercorrelated. If this is the case, thinking of anxiety as a unitary concept
could be quite misleading. More research is needed on the components of anxiety
and the correlations among them. At any given time, people can be characterized
by their observable behavior (e.g., social withdrawal), their thoughts (e.g., wor-
ries), and their bodily reactions (e.g., heart rate). For a given individual, these
components might or might not be correlated. Because we know little about the
degree of synchrony or desynchrony that may exist among these anxiety compo-
nents for particular aspects of life, this approach could be of considerable value in
increasing the reliability of anxiety measurement and understanding the rela-
tionships among anxiety components. It could also be useful in selecting appro-
priate dependent measures, such as performance, sense of well-being, and the
reactions of others to a target person as a social object. There is a great need to
interrelate the behavioral, cognitive, and physiological components of anxiety
and to consider their separate and interactive effects on a variety of behaviors.
This chapter focuses attention mainly on the cognitive component because (1) it
has been weIl studied and (2) it has been shown to be significantly related to
inteIlective performance.
We review research and theory on test anxiety in four areas: test anxiety and
performance; cognitive interference, worry, and self-preoccupation; the compo-
nents of test anxiety; and intervention strategies. The concluding section of the
chapter deals with points of intersection between research on test anxiety and
social anxiety.

TEST ANXIETY AND PERFORMANCE

There are marked individual differences in reactions to evaluational situa-

tions, the range of the reactions extending from virtual immobilization in the
face of potential criticism to exhilaration at the prospect of receiving accolades.
From an information-processing point of view, it is important to identify the
cognitive events that influence overt behavior and the personal meaning that an
event has for the individual. The person who freezes on a final examination
seems preoccupied with self-doubt and the consequences of failure, whereas the
accolade seeker seems confident and approaches an examination as an oppor-
tunity for receiving recognition.
To study test anxiety, an index of the variable is needed. Over the years,
several test-anxiety indices have been developed and shown to be useful. One of
the first of these was the Test Anxiety Questionnaire, which consisted of aseries
of graphic rating scales (Mandler & S. B. Sarason, 1952). The 37 items of the
true-false Test Anxiety Scale, which has been used in many field and laboratory
investigations, are presented in Table 1 (Sarason, 1978). Spielberger has ex-
tended his analysis of general anxiety as astate and trait to test anxiety. The
478 IRWIN G. SARASON AND BARBARA R. SARASON

TABLE 1. Test Anxiety Scale (TAS) Items

(T) 1. While taking an important exam, I find myself thinking of how much brighter the other
students are than I am.
(T) 2. If I were to take an intelligence test, I would worry a great deal before taking it.
(F) 3. If I knew I was going to take an intelligence test, I would feel confident and relaxed,
beforehand.
(T) 4. While taking an irnportant examination, I perspire a great deal.
(T) 5. Ouring course examinations, I find myself thinking of things unrelated to the actual
course material.
(T) 6. I get to feeling very panicky when I have to take a surprise exam.
(T) 7. Ouring tests, I find myself thinking of the consequences of failing.
(T) 8. After irnportant tests, I am frequently so tense that my stornach gets upset.
(T) 9. I freeze up on things like intelligence tests and final exams.
(T) 10. Getting a good grade on one test doesn't seem to increase my confidence on the second.
(T) 11. I sometimes feel my heart beating very fast during irnportant exams.
(T) 12. After taking a test, I always feel I could have done better than I actuaily did.
(T) 13. I usuaily get depressed after taking a test.
(T) 14. I have an uneasy, upset feeling before taking a final examination.
(F) 15. When taking a test, my emotional feelings do not interfere with my performance.
(T) 16. Ouring a course examination, I frequently get so nervous that I forget facts I reaIly know.
(T) 17. I seem to defeat myself while working on irnportant tests.
(T) 18. The harder I work at taking a test or studying for one, the more confused I get.
(T) 19. As soon as an exam is over, I try to stop worrying about it, but I just can't.
(T) 20. Ouring exams, I sometimes wonder if 1'11 ever get through college.
(T) 21. I would rather write a paper than take an examination for my grade in a course.
(T) 22. I wish examinations did not bother me so much.
(T) 23. I think I could do much better on tests if I could take them alone and not feel pressured
by a time limit.
(T) 24. Thinking about the grade I may get in a course interferes with my studying and my
performance on tests.
(T) 25. If examinations could be done away with, I think I would actually leam more.
(F) 26. On exams I take the attitude, "If I don't know it now, there's no point worrying about
it."
(F) 27.I reaIly don't see why some people get so upset about tests.
(T) 28.Thoughts of doing poody interfere with my performance on tests.
(F) 29.
I don't study any harder for final exams than for the rest of my course work.
(F) 30.Even when I'm weil prepared for a test, I feel very anxious about it.
(T) 31.I don't enjoy eating before an irnportant test.
(T) 32.Before an irnportant examination, I find my hands or arms trembling.
(F) 33.
I seldom feel the need for "cramming" before an exam.
(T) 34.The university should recognize that some students are more nervous than others about
tests and that this affects their performance.
(T) 35. It seems to me that examination periods should not be made such tense situations.
(T) 36. I start feeling very uneasy just before getting a test paper back.
(T) 37. I dread courses where the professor has the habit of giving "pop" quizzes.
Note. Keyed answers are in parentheses.

outcome of this work is his Test Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, 1980). The
Reactions to Tests, a multidimensional measure of four components of test anx-
iety, has scales that inc1ude Tension, Worry, Test-Irrelevant Thinking, and Bodily
Symptoms (Sarason, 1984). Most researchers regard test anxiety as debilitative
and a source of interference with task performance (Sarason, 1958). Alpert and
TEST ANXIETY 479

Haber (1960) designed a Test Anxiety Questionnaire (the Achievement-Anxiety

Test) to measure both debilitative and facilitative anxiety. They reported that the
two scales of their questionnaire correlated -.48 with each other and that the
debilitative scale correlated .64 with the Test Anxiety Questionnaire.

Academic Performance
Most of the available instruments have been used to determine correlations
between test anxiety and various types of performance in both adults and chil-
dren. Studies in academic settings, using a variety of indices, have found an
inverse relationship between test anxiety and performance (e.g., grades, scores
on aptitude tests) (Sarason, 1980). There is also considerable evidence that the
performance of high Test Anxiety Scale (TAS) scorers on complex tasks is partic-
ularly affected by evaluational stressors (Sarason, 1975). The less complex, less
demanding the task, the weaker the inverse relationship. Evaluative stressors
are found in many naturally occurring academic situations. In laboratory stud-
ies, experimental manipulations often involve time pressure, failure reports, and
achievement-orienting instructions that inform subjects that there will be some
kind of evaluation of their performance.
An example of test-anxiety research that deals with traditional academic
indices is Coes' (1987) study of performance on a college entrance examination.
Using the Reactions to Tests (RIT), she found that, while the entrance examina-
tion provided a fairly accurate index of academic achievement for students with
low test anxiety, there was a serious underestimation of intellectual potential
among high test-anxious students. Coes concluded that high test-anxious indi-
viduals are penalized relatively more heavily than are low test-anxious indi-
viduals in evaluative situations like college entrance examinations. She found
that the RIT's Tension, Worry, and Bodily Symptoms scales provided reliable
indices of the degree of underestimation of college performance. Coes also
found that women received higher scores on the RIT's scales than did rnen, a
finding consistent with many other studies of test anxiety.
Illustrating applied studies of test anxiety outside school settings is one in
which this individual difference variable was related to the performance of Ma-
rine Corps recruits (Robinson, Novaco, & Sarason, 1981). Using a shortened
version of the TAS, recruits high in test anxiety performed more poorly than
other recruits and were more likely to be separated from the service for various
reasons (including health and uncooperativeness) than were recruits with low or
midrange TAS scores. Another example of applied research is Haglund's (1987)
investigation of the possibility that test anxiety might be related to performance
on driving tests given to people applying for drivers' licenses. He found a
negative relationship between test anxiety and performance on a driving test.

Laboratory Settings
An investigation by Sarason and Stoops (1978) illustrates the use of test
anxiety in testing hypotheses about both performance and cognitive processes.
480 IRWIN G. SARASON AND BARBARA R. SARASON

The investigation comprised aseries of experiments concerning subjective judg-

ments of the passage of time. After being given either achievement-orienting or
neutral instructions, subjects waited for an undesignated period of time, after
which they performed an intellective task. The achievement-orienting manipula-
tion involved telling the subject that the task was a measure of intelligence. The
dependent measures were subjects' estimates of the duration of the waiting and
performance periods and their scores on the assigned task.
The experiments were aimed at providing information about the way in
which individuals differing in anxiety fill time. It was predicted that, in the
presence of achievement-orienting cues, time would pass more slowly for high
than for middle and low TAS scorers. When these cues are not present, there
should not be a significant gap in estimates of time duration among groups
differing in test anxiety. Furthermore, it was feIt that the effects of an achieve-
ment orientation should be as noticeable while the individual is waiting to
perform as during performance itself.
The first two experiments supported the conclusion that not only is the
performance of TAS subjects deleteriously affected by achievement-orienting
instructions, but the subjects also tend to overestimate both the duration of the
test period and the period during which they wait to have their ability evaluated.
This appears analogous to the tendency to exaggerate time spent in the dentist's
waiting room and office. Anticipating and going through unpleasant, frighten-
ing, or threatening experiences seem to take up a lot of time. If this interpreta-
tion is correct, the question arises: 00 individuals differing in anxiety fill time
periods in similar or dissimilar ways? The third experiment dealt with this
questions.
In the experiment, college students worked on a digit-symbol task prior to a
waiting period and then were asked to solve aseries of difficult anagrams. The
subjects then responded to a questionnaire dealing with their cognitive activity
during the anagrams task. The experimental design encompassed two factors:
(1) TAS scores and (2) achievement-orienting and neutral instructions. Each
subject worked on the digit-symbol task for 4 minutes. This was followed by a 4-
minute waiting period. At the end of the waiting period, subjects performed for
18 minutes on the anagrams. The experiment concluded with subjects respond-
ing to the Cognitive Interference Questionnaire, a self-report measure of what
people think about while working on a task (Sarason, Sarason, Keefe, Hayes, &
Shearin, 1986; see Figure 1). The experiment showed that under achievement-
orienting conditions, high test-anxious subjects reported significantly more pre-
occupation with failure and their low ability while performing than did low test-
anxious subjects. It appeared as though intrusive cognitions contributed to the
relatively poor performance of high test-anxious individuals.
This type of evidence led Wine (1982) to an attentional interpretation of test
anxiety, according to which people at high and low levels of test anxiety differ in
the types of thoughts to which their attention is directed in the face of an
evaluative stressor. Consistent with this interpretation are the results of Ganzer's
(1968) experiment, which showed that while performing on an intellective task,
subjects with high test anxiety make many more task-irrelevant comments than
TEST ANXIETY 481

I. lVe are interested in learning about the kinds of thoughts that go

through people's heads while they are working on a task. The
following is a list of thoughts some of which you might have had
while doing the task on which you have just worked. Please
indicate approximately how often each thought occurred to you
while working on it by placing the appropriate number in the blank
provided to the left of each question .
Example 1 " Never 4 " Often
2 " Once 5 " Very often
3 " A few limes

1. I Ihought about how poorly I was doing.

2. I wondered what the experimenter would think of me.
3. I thought about how I should work more carefully.
4. thought about how much time I had left.
5. Ihought about how others have done on this task.
6. thought about the difficully of the problems.
7. thought about my level of ability.
8. I thought about the purpose of the experiment.
9. I thought about how I would fee1 if I were told how I performed.
_10. I Ihought about how often I got confused.
11. I thought about things completely unrelated to the experiment.

11. Please circie the number on the fOIiOwing scale which best represents
the degree 10 which you feit your mind wandered during the task you
have just completed.

Not at all 1:2:3:4:5 : 6:7 Very much

FIGURE 1. Cognitive Interference Questionnaire.

do subjects with low test anxiety. A high percentage of these comments are self-
deprecatory. Other researchers have found that people with high test anxiety are
more likely than those with low test anxiety to blame themselves for their
performance level (Doris & Sarason, 1955), feelless confident in making percep-
tual judgments (Meunier & Rule, 1967), and set lower levels of aspiration for
themselves (Trapp & Kausler, 1958). These empirical findings have resulted in a
variety of productive research issues, including that of anxiety's effects on cue
utilization (Geen, 1976), its developmental antecedents (Dusek, 1980), and clinical
and educational interventions that might influence its intensity and undesirable
consequences (Denney, 1980; Meichenbaum, 1977).
Several studies have shown that individuals high in test anxiety differ from
those who are low in test anxiety in the degree to which they exercise caution
and conservatism in responding to tasks (Geen, 1987). When free to escape or
actively avoid the testing situation, high test-anxious people tend to leave the
situation if the opportunity to do so is available. When constraints against leav-
ing are present, they often adopt a cautious and conservative mode of respond-
ing that takes the form of passive avoidance behavior.
That test anxiety plays a role in decisional and predecisional processes is
illustrated by a study reported by Nichols-Hoppe and Beach (1987). Their study
482 IRWIN G. SARASON AND BARBARA R. SARASON

was stimulated in part by Geen's (1985) earlier examination of anxiety-induced

cautiousness in the context of a signal detection task. Geen found that high-
anxious subjects set a more stringent decision criterion for reporting detection of
the signal; that is, they were more cautious about what constituted sufficient
evidence that a signal had occurred. Nichols-Hoppe and Beach studied predeci-
sional information seeking using a task requiring participants to decide among
alternatives (e.g., apartments) on the basis of various dimensions of information
about each (e.g., rent, size, noise level, etc.). Their subjects were allowed to
examine whatever information they wanted to, in whatever order they wanted,
before making the decision, and arecord was kept of their search sequences.
The researchers found that subjects who scored high on the TAS inspected more
information in the course of predecisional searches, and that more of it was
redundant, than did subjects who scored low in test anxiety. Nichols-Hoppe and
Beach suggested that anxiety induces increased inspection of information prior
to decision making, and that at least some of that increase consists of reinspec-
tion of previously observed information. Anxious decision makers are not only
cautious but also have difficulty absorbing decision-relevant information, per-
haps because of intrusive thoughts that are unrelated to the decision task. These
results are consistent with other evidence concerning cognitive functioning and
anxiety (Eysenck, MacLeod, & Matthews, 1987; Frey, Stahlberg, & Fries, 1986).

COGNITIVE INTERFERENCE, WORRY, AND SELF-PREOCCUPATION

Research on test anxiety has clearly established the detrimental effects of

this personality characteristic on behavior in a variety of evaluative situations. A
eloser look at the mechanisms by which this decrease in performance level might
come about suggests that interfering thoughts play a major role in the perfor-
mance decrement. Thoughts that relate to worry about performance and to
social comparison seem to be responsible for much of the performance decre-
ment reported by high test-anxious people. Thoughts about off-task matters and
a general wandering of attention from the task also contribute to performance
deficits.
There is growing evidence of the significant role cognitive factors play in
test anxiety. Covington, Omelich, and Schwarzer (1986) found that diminished
ability perceptions and diminished perceptions of self-worth are key factors in
the experience of anxiety and its effect on performance. Krohne and Hindei
(1986) studied superior competitive table tennis players and found that top
performers reported relatively few self-preoccupying thoughts while perform-
ing. Their findings suggest that while top performers generally are able to im-
merse themselves completely in the tasks that confront them, anxiety can cause
a redirection of attentional focus from the task at hand to self and consequent
failure.
Deffenbacher and his colleagues in aseries of studies (e.g., Deffenbacher et
al., 1986) have investigated the belief systems of people differing in anxiety. They
were interested in the possibility that particular classes of beliefs might ba relat-
TEST ANXIETY 483

ed to the types of intrusive thoughts experienced by individuals of varying

anxiety levels. Overconcem for the negative consequences of personal behavior,
perfectionism, the tendency to catastrophize, and beliefs about helplessness and
personal isolation appear to be central beliefs significantly associated with the
likelihood of experiencing anxiety. Highly anxious people become preoccupied
with possible threat, their ruminations tend to persist, and they are most potent
when situational threats are actually present. Hunsley (1987) found that test
anxiety was related to the occurrence of frequent negative thoughts about per-
sonal abilities, the perceived difficulty of questions, and mood during exams.
In an analysis of the components of anxiety, Ingram and Kendall (1987)
identified several critical cognitive features. One of these consists of schemata
which relate to possible danger or harm to the individual. With regard to test
anxiety this often means the perceived possibility of negative evaluation. The
word "possibility" is important in relation to both general and specific anxieties,
such as test anxiety. When not in an evaluational situation, or anticipating one,
the highly test-anxious individual may not worry about possibilities of failure,
embarrassment, and social rejection. But in evaluational situations these pos-
sibilities become active and salient. When this happens, the test-anxious indi-
vidual becomes self-absorbed instead of being task-absorbed. Schwartz and
Garamoni (1986) have estimated that cognitive functioning generally consists of
a roughly 2 to 1 proportion of positive to negative thinking. Evaluational
stressors heavily tip the balance for test-anxiety-prone individuals in the op-
posite direction.
The balance of positive to negative thoughts under evaluational circum-
stances is only part of what characterizes the cognitive life of the highly test-
anxious person. Evaluational stress not only tips this balance but also influences
other aspects of information processing. Naveh-Benjamin, McKeachie, and Lin
(1987) have found that when compared with less-anxious students, highly test-
anxious students have difficulties in organizing material to be leamed. This
suggests that one of the causes for the poor academic performance of highly test-
anxious students is a deficit in organization of the material to be leamed. A fuHy
developed information-processing analysis of anxiety requires attention to pre-
performance cognitions, as weH as cognitions during performance and the indi-
vidual differences associated with them.
Highly test-anxious individuals experience high levels of intrusive thinking.
These interfering thoughts tend to center around worry and self-preoccupation.
Although all people think about their personal capabilities in relation to the task
at hand, anxious individuals seem to become overly preoccupied with these self-
evaluative thoughts. Thoughts such as "I don't know what to do now" can be
self-defeating if the person in fact has the wherewithal to handle the situation.
One type of cognition that may be particularly relevant to anxiety in social
situations consists of perceptions and thoughts about one's physical attributes.
Many socially anxious people worry, often quite unrealistically, about what they
see as unappealing or even revolting features of their appearance. These wor-
ries, of course, may or may not be based on reality. Anxious self-preoccupation
may arouse emotions that interfere with the perception and appraisal of events
484 IRWIN G. SARASON AND BARBARA R. SARASON

and of the reactions of others. This is likely to produce errors and uncertainties
in performance and interpersonal behavior. The anxious person may at the same
time notice too much and too little and be prone to distort and misinterpret
available cues.

Attributional Aspects of Test Anxiety

The study of anxiety requires analysis of both features of situations and the
individual differences people bring to the situations. One pertinent source of
individual differences is the attributional styles of people differing in test anxiety.
The available evidence suggest that there usually is more to test anxiety than
simply a history of failure experiences. Test-anxious people process their objec-
tive successes and failures in distinctive ways, and their anxiety is related impor-
tantly to how they, and significant others in their lives, view test-taking experi-
ences.
An important aspect of attributional style is the way in which responsibility
for outcome is assigned. Turk and Sarason (1983) studied the performance of
subjects differing in test anxiety as a function of a prior success or failure experi-
ence and the subject's assignment of responsibility for the performance level
achieved. Half of the subjects began the experiment by working on either insolu-
ble or easyanagrams. For each difficulty level, the subjects were given either
achievement-orienting or neutral instructions. All subjects were asked to check
"passed" on their test if they solved three of the five anagrams and "failed" if
they solved fewer than three problems. (All the subjects who worked on the
easyanagrams "passed.") They then filled out a questionnaire that dealt with
causal attributions. The questionnaire asked the subjects about the extent to
which they interpreted their anagrams performance as being due to ability,
effort, luck, and task difficulty. Attributions were made on a Likert-type scale of
7 points. In the next phase of the experiment all subjects worked on aseries of
moderately difficult anagrams.
Following the failure condition, the high test-anxious group performed at a
lower level than did all other groups in the experiment. This is consistent with
previous work on test anxiety. Following the success condition, the high test-
anxious subjects were categorized on the basis of their causal attributions. Sub-
jects who made internal attributions on the failure task (e.g., "I'm not good at
solving problems") had relatively poor subsequent performance on the ana-
grams regardless of their anxiety score. Following the success condition, the
best-performing group consisted of high test-anxious subjects who made inter-
nal attributions (e.g., 'Tm an intelligent person"). This study illustrates the need
to know more about the cognitive effects of success as weIl as failure experiences
for subjects differing in test anxiety and in attributional style.
In a study that addressed this question of the interaction of test anxiety and
attributional style, Goldberg (1983) correlated test anxiety, assessed using total
scores on the Reactions to Tests, with the Attributional Styles Questionnaire,
which yields scores for causal attribution regarding both good and bad (desirable
and undesirable) events. She found that highly test-anxious subjects tend to
TEST ANXIETY 485

attribute successful task performance to external factors (e.g., "It was an easy
test"). She also found that test anxiety is positively correlated with scores on the
Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (Watson & Friend, 1969). Thus, highly anxious
individuals worry about what other people think of them and attribute bad
outcomes to "personal helplessness," while low test-anxious individuals tend to
attribute their successes to personal competence and their failures to external
factors. In other words, attributions to long-lasting pervasive causes rather than
temporary situational factors are reversed for success and failure in the two
groups.
Test anxiety can be interpreted as the tendency to view with alarm the
consequences of inadequate performance in an evaluative situation. In asense,
the highly test-anxious person creates his or her own problem by processing too
much information and making inappropriate attributions. The job of processing
task-relevant information is complicated by maladaptive personalized feedback
(e.g., ''I'm dumb"; "What if I don't pass this exam?"). Conditions that evoke
positive attributions might be particularly effective with highly test-anxious peo-
pIe because they counter the worrying and preoccupation that is characteristic of
anxiety.

COMPONENTS OF TEST ANXIETY

Researchers who study general and specific types of anxiety, such as test
anxiety, have wondered about the degree to which they are dealing with a
unitary response or an amalgam of responses. One frequently mentioned dis-
tinction is the one between worry and emotionality (Deffenbacher, 1977, 1978;
Kaplan, McCormick, & Twitchell, 1979; Liebert & Morris, 1967; Morris, Davis, &
Hutchings, 1981). Worry refers to the cognitive side of anxiety (preoccupations,
concerns); emotionality refers largely to a person's awareness of bodily arousal
and tension. In their reviews of the literat ure on the worry-emotionality distinc-
tion, Deffenbacher (1980) and Tryon (1980) showed that while worry and emo-
tionality are correlated, only worry is related to performance decrements in the
presence of an evaluational stressor. Burchfield, Stein, and Hamilton (1985),
after reviewing the literature, concluded that anxiety is primarily a cognitive
event with physiological correlates.
Worry and emotionality, like anxiety, are concepts. They may or may not be
unitary. A useful step would be to define more reliably the various types of
reactions people have when placed in evaluational situations. Deffenbacher
(1986) found that while performing on a test, high test-anxious subjects had
higher pulse rates than those low in test anxiety. Pulse rate was unrelated to
performance, while worry over evaluation was associated with poor perform-
ance.
There is a sizeable body of evidence consistent with the idea that proneness
to self-preoccupation and, more specifically, worry over evaluation, is a power-
ful component of what is referred to as test anxiety. H, as several studies sug-
gest, the most active ingredient of test anxiety is self-preoccupation, there are
486 IRWIN G. SARASON AND BARBARA R. SARASON

some important and practical implications for assessment. While both general
and test anxiety are usually defined as complex states that include cognitive,
emotional, behavioral, and bodily components, most anxiety measures reflect
this inclusive definition by yielding only one global score. Wine (1982) has
pointed out that it is not immediately obvious how to identify the active or most
active ingredients in this complex and has suggested that test anxiety might
fruitfully be reconceptualized primarily in terms of cognitive and attentional
processes aroused in evaluational settings.
The Reactions to Tests (RTT) was created in order to assess separately sever-
al components of a person's reactions to test situations (Sarason, 1984). The RTT
consists of four factor analytically derived scales:

1. Tension ("I feel distressed and uneasy before tests").

2. Worry ("During tests, I wonder how the other people are doing").
3. Test-Irrelevant Thought ("Irrelevant bits of information pop into my head
during a test").
4. Bodily Reactions ("My heart beats faster when the test begins").

Table 2 presents of the items of the four scales. While the scales are posi-
tively intercorrelated, the correlations seem low enough to justify comparisons
among them concerning their predictive value. In one study of performance on
a digit-symbol task, the RTT was related to performance on a difficult digit-
symbol task under evaluative conditions (Sarason, 1984). However, the Worry
scale was more consistently related to performance and post-performance re-
ports of cognitive interference than were the other scales. The Tension scale
approached the Worry scale as a predictor of performance.
The RTT has been related to physiological measures obtained during a test-
taking situation. Burchfield, Sarason, Sarason, and Beaton (1982) examined the
relationship of the RTT to physiological indices gathered while college students
worked on items of the type found on intelligence tests. Both the Tension and
Worry scales were significantly correlated with skin conductance and finger-tip
temperature changes during performance. There were no significant correla-
tions with EMG changes. Interestingly, the Task-Irrelevant Thinking and Bodily
Reactions scales were unrelated to all physiological change measures. More
studies dealing with relationships among components of test anxiety, perfor-
mance variables, and physiological measures are needed.

INTERVENTION STRATEGIES

With increasing evidence of the deleterious role test anxiety plays in perfor-
mance, impetus has been given to ways of increasing test-taking coping skills.
What can be done to strengthen the test-anxious person's ability to handle task-
interfering tensions related to being evaluated? Experimental studies have used
a wide variety of interventions to influence performance. Some of these manip-
ulations may have opposite effects on people differing in test anxiety. For exam-
pIe, reassuring and neutral instructions at the outset of an experimental session
TEST ANXIETY 487

TABLE 2. The Four Factor Analytically Derived Reaction

to Tests (RTT) Scales

Tension
1. I feel distressed and uneasy before tests.
2. I freeze up when I think about an upcoming test.
3. I feel jittery before tests.
4. While taking a test, I feel tense.
5. I find myself becoming anxious the day of a test.
6. I wish tests did not bother me so much.
7. I am anxious about tests.
8. I feel panicky during tests.
9. Before tests, I feel troubled about what is going to happen.
10. I have an uneasy feeling before an important test.
Worry
1. The thought, "What happens if I fail this test?" goes through my mind during tests.
2. During a difficult test, I worry whether I will pass it.
3. While taking a test, I find myself thinking how much brighter the other people are.
4. After a test, I say to myself, "It's over and I did as weIl as I could."
5. Before taking a test, I worry about failure.
6. While taking'a test, I often think about how difficult it iso
7. Thoughts of doing poorly interfere with my concentration during tests.
8. During tests, I think about how poorly I am doing.
9. The harder I work at taking a test, the more confused I get.
10. Ouring tests, I wonder how the other people are doing.
Test-irrelevant thinking
1. Ouring tests, I find myself thinking of things unrelated to the material being tested.
2. Irrelevant bits of information pop into my head during a test.
3. My mind wanders during tests.
4. While taking a test, I often don't pay attention to the questions.
5. I think about current events during a test.
6. I have fantasies a few times during a test.
7. While taking tests, I sometimes think about being somewhere else.
8. Ouring tests, I find I am distracted by thoughts of upcoming events.
9. I daydream during tests.
10. During tests, I think about recent past events.
Bodily reactions
1. I become aware of my body during tests (feeling itches, pain, sweat, nausea).
2. I feel the need to go to the tollet more often than usual during a test.
3. My heart beats faster when the test begins.
4. My stomach gets upset before tests.
5. I get a headache during an important test.
6. I get a headache before a test.
7. I sometimes feel dizzy after a test.
8. My hands often feel cold before and during a test.
9. My mouth feels dry during a test.
10. I sometimes find myself trembling before or during tests.

facilitate the performance of high test-anxious groups. Unfortunately, these

same conditions may be detrimental for low test-anxious groups.
Observational opportunities and modeling can provide a person not only
with demonstrations of overt responses but, if the model "thinks through"
problems and tactics aloud, covert ones as weIl. Observing a model prepare for a
488 IRWIN G. SARASON AND BARBARA R. SARASON

test situation can shape and reshape one's views and expectancies conceming
oneself and others. Whereas exposure to models who have failure experiences
has a negative effect on the performance of high test-amcious subjects, exposure
to models displaying adaptive behavior plays a discernible positive role in facili-
tating leaming and performance. In one experiment, subjects differing in test
anxiety were given the opportunity to observe a model who demonstrated effec-
tive ways of performing an anagrams task. Using a talk-out-Ioud technique, the
model displayed several types of facilitative thoughts and cognitions. The major
finding was that high test-anxious subjects benefited more from the opportunity
to observe a cognitive model than did those low in test anxiety (Sarason, 1972,
1973). Cognitive modeling might have considerable potential in instructional
programs as a means of demonstrating for students the differences between
adaptive and maladaptive cognitions and the negative aspects of maladaptive
attentional habits.
Another approach to facilitating the performance of highly test-anxious peo-
pIe is pertinent, easilyunderstood pre-performance instructions that direct sub-
jects' attention to the importance of task-relevant thinking. Sarason and Turk
(1983) studied 180 undergraduate students differing in RTT Worry scores who
performed on a difficult anagrams task in groups of 15 to 20. The subjects were
told that performance on the anagrams task was a measure of the ability to do
college-level work. After this communication, one-third of the subjects were
given an attention-directing condition, one-third were given reassurance, and a
control group received no additional communication.
The instructions for the anagrams task were contained in the test booklet.
The attention-directing and reassuring communications were given by the ex-
perimenter after the subjects had read the task instructions, which included the
achievement-orienting message. Subjects under the reassurance condition were
told not to be overly concemed about their performance on the anagrams. The
experimenter made such comments as "Don't worry" and "You will do just
fine." Subjects under the attention-directing condition were told to absorb them-
selves as much as possible in the anagrams task and to avoid thinking about
other things. The experimenter said, "concentrate an your attention on the
problems," "think only about the anagrams," and "don't let yourself get dis-
tracted from the task." High-worry subjects under the control condition per-
formed poorly compared to the other control subjects. High-worry subjects in
the attention-directing and reassurance groups performed weIl. However, con-
sistent with previous evidence, the study showed that reassuring instructions
have adetrimental effect on people who are not worriers. Nonworry subjects in
the reassurance group performed poorly, perhaps because nonworriers take the
reassuring communication at face value; that is, they take the task lightly and
lower their motivationallevel. The performance levels of all groups that received
the attention-directing instructions were high. The attention-directing approach
seems to have an of the advantages of reassurance for high-worry subjects, with
none of the disadvantages for low-worry subjects.
After the anagrams task an the subjects responded to the Cognitive Inter-
ference Questionnaire (CIQ), which provided a measure of the number and type
TEST ANXIETY 489

of interfering thoughts experienced in that particular situation. Cognitive inter-

ference at the end of the anagrams tasks was relatively low under the attention-
direction condition for high- as weIl as low-worry subjects. Similar to previous
findings concerning highly test-anxious subjects, the high-worry groups showed
high cognitive interference under the control conditions.
The performance and CIQ scores were reanalyzed in terms of the other RTT
scales, but none of these analyses revealed statistically significant resuIts. The
findings of this experiment support an attentional interpretation of anxiety and
worry. They suggest that simply calling subjects' attention to the need for task-
oriented behavior can have a salutary effect on their performance, with a reduc-
tion in intrusive thoughts.
Another approach to test-anxiety reduction is through sodal psychological
processes and the relationship between the test taker and the tester. For exam-
pIe, Sarason (1981) employed a sodal support manipulation in an experiment
with subjects who differed in test anxiety. Sodal support was provided by a
group discussion focused on sharing concerns and solutions concerning stu-
dents' problems of stress and anxiety in testing situations. Several confederates
worked to heighten sodal assodation by suggesting a meeting after the experi-
mental session. The group discussion was followed by an anagrams task which
was presented as aseparate, unrelated experiment run by another experimenter
that was combined into the same session for the sake of effidency.
The resuIts showed that performance and self-preoccupation as measured
by the CIQ were affected by this spedally created opportunity for sodal assoda-
tion and acceptance by others. Performance on the anagrams task increased and
self-preoccupation decreased as a function of the sodal support manipulation.
However, this change was pronounced only in subjects who were high in test
anxiety. The performance of those low in test anxiety was essentially unchanged
by the support manipulation.
Modeling and pre-performance instructions are only two of the interven-
tions aimed at reducing the deleterious effects of test anxiety on performance.
There have been two general approaches to interventions pertinent to test anx-
iety, those that deal with aspects of the test situation and those intended to
increase the individual's ability to perform in test-taking situations (Spielberger
& Vagg, 1987). The modeling experiment described above and the experiment
dealing with pre-performance instructions illustrate efforts to influence test anx-
iety through situational manipulations. In addition to these types of laboratory
investigations, the number of investigations in actual classroom settings are
increasing. For example, Helmke (1986) investigated academic performance
across classrooms. He found that the more success-and-failure feedback to stu-
dents is salient within the classroom, the stronger are the interfering effects of
high test anxiety. He also found that orienting students by frequently giving
them previews, heavily emphasizing review of learned material, and allotting
suffident time for answering questions reduce the debilitating effects of worry
cognitions.
Further classroom research is needed to explore the interrelationship of
achievement and achievement-oriented variables by comparing groups of class-
490 IRWIN G. SARASON AND BARBARA R. SARASON

rooms differing in academic atmosphere and the relationship between teachers

and students. There is a need also to compare the results of manipulations using
individual students, as well as the dassroom, as the unit of analysis.
Intervention research focused on the individual has been carried out in the
form of treatments directed toward either or both the cognitive and the emotional
dimensions of test anxiety (Allen, Elias, & Zlotow, 1980; Crowley, Crowley, &
Clodfelter, 1986; Denney, 1980; Zeidner, Klingman, & Papko, 1988). Frequently
used interventions indude cognitive therapy, rational-emotive therapy, cog-
nitive-behavioral treatments, systematic desensitization, relaxation training, and
biofeedback training. Cognitively focused treatments seem to be effective in
reducing test anxiety, and emotionality-focused treatments, such as biofeedback,
are relative ineffective in reducing test anxiety unless these treatments indude
cognitive elements such as detailed instructions on how to use relaxation. The
cognitively focused treatments have been found to generalize from individual
treatment settings to school-related social-evaluative situations, such as giving a
talk in dass or talking with a teacher. Cognitive therapies directed toward the
reduction of the worry component of test anxiety have been successful in reduc-
ing self-reported anxiety. While cognitive therapies have sometimes been suc-
cessful in improving the academic performance of test-anxious students, the
success has by no means been universal (Dendato & Diener, 1986).
Using test-anxious students as the unit of analysis requires attention not
only to their cognitions and emotional reactions, but also to the poor academic
skills which they often bring to academic situations. As several research studies
have noted, highly test-anxious students have less effective study habits than do
their low-anxious counterparts (Culler & Holahan, 1980). There is increasing
evidence that inadequate study skills and ineffective test-taking strategies (mea-
sured independently of classroom performance) may have stronger negative
effects on grades than test anxiety (Brown & Nelson, 1983). Dendato and Diener
(1986) have found that while study skill training alone was not effective in
reducing anxiety or improving test performance, and relaxation and cognitive
training were effective in reducing anxiety but not in improving performance,
the combination of these interventions was effective in both reducing anxiety
and in improving performance. The superiority of Dendato and Diener's com-
bined therapy condition suggests the value of having interventions sufficiently
complex to deal with the major facets of the test-anxiety experience. The student
who is unprepared or lacks effective test-taking skills may benefit little from
attempts to reduce worry directly. Not only must self-evaluative statements and
other off-task behavior be reduced, but effective on-task behavior must be sub-
stituted. Attempts to improve preparation and test-taking skills without treating
anxiety, however, will also often prove to be an insufficient treatment for test-
anxious students.

TEST ANXIETY AND SOCIAL ANXIETY

Anxiety is generally defined as having both cognitive (apprehension, dread,

fear) and affective-emotional arousal (physiological responsiveness) compo-
TEST ANXlETY 491

nents. The research we have reviewed reflects the roles these components play
in test anxiety. Sodal anxiety, which encompasses dating anxiety, speech anx-
iety, stage fright, communication apprehension, audience anxiety, and sodal
embarrassment, would appear to involve similar components. Just as a compo-
nential approach seems to hold promise of a better understanding of evalua-
tional anxiety, the same approach may prove useful in the study of sodal anxiety
and shyness. Although these two concepts are among the most widely used in
analyses of sodal behavior, they refer to such a wide variety of phenomena that
their referents are often difficult to identify. For example, sodal anxiety can be
specific or general. Some people experience it prior to, during, or after their
sodal interactions, whereas others experience it in particular situations. For
some people, sodal anxiety and shyness are highly correlated, whereas for
others there seems to be only a slight relationship. Although most shy people
show anxiety and sodal inhibition in interpersonal situations, others may dis-
play timidity or introversion without apparent personal discomfort (Leary, 1983).
Thus, two important problems present themselves: (1) How general or traitlike
are the tendendes toward sodal anxiety and shyness? (2) What are the compo-
nents of reactions to sodal situations and what is their interrelationship? A third
question also needs an answer: (3) How do moderator variables (either within
the individual or in the environment) influence sodal behavior and the experi-
ence of sodal anxiety and shyness?
Because the component analysis of test anxiety seems promising, we are
using a similar approach to sodal behavior. The RIT described earlier consists of
scales that assess tension or emotionality, worry, test-irrelevant thought, and
bodily reactions. The RIT's items have been rewritten to refer to sodal rather
than testing situations. An instrument called Reactions to Sodal Situations (RSS)
has been administered to a large group of college students and factor analyzed.
Essentially, the same four factors found for the RIT emerged in the factor analy-
sis of the RSS (Sarason & Sarason, 1986). However, the RSS Tension and Worry
factors were less pure than the comparable RIT factors.
When the RSS was correlated with three other individual difference indices,
several significant relationships were found. One of these indices was the Sodal
Competence Questionnaire (Com Q), a 10-item scale designed to tap the degree
of comfort in sodal situations (Sarason, Sarason, Hacker, & Basham, 1985). Each
Com-Q item is rated by the subject on a 4-point rating scale from not at aillike me
to a great deallike me. Table 3 presents the Com-Q's items. Whereas there were
significant negative correlations between alI four RSS scales and the Com Q for
both sexes, those involving the RSS Tension scale were the highest (rs = - .67
and -.63 for males and females, respectively.) The comparable Worry scale
correlations were -.45 and - .49. Thus, self-reported tension or emotionality
and worry on the RSS is reflected in lower levels of self-described sodal compe-
tence.
The RSS scores were also correlated with the two scales of the Sodal Sup-
port Questionnaire (SSQ; Sarason, Levine, Basham, & Sarason, 1983). The SSQ
has two scores: the Number score measures the number of persons that the
individual perceives to be available if support were needed; the Satisfaction
scores measures how satisfactory the available support is perceived to be. Just as
492 IRWIN G. SARASON AND BARBARA R. SARASON

TABLE 3. Items Included in the SodaI Competence Questionnaire (COM Q)

1. Start a conversation with someone I don't know weIl, but would like to get to know beUer.
2. Be confident in my ability to make friends, even in a situation where I know few people.
3. Be able to mix weIl in a group.
4. Feel uncomfortable looking at other people directly.
5. Have trouble keeping a conversation going when I'm just getting to know someone.
6. Find it hard to let a person know that I want to become c10ser friends with hirn/her.
7. Enjoy social gatherings just to be with people.
8. Have problems getting other people to notice me.
9. Feel confident of my social behavior.
10. Seek out social encounters because I enjoy being with other people.
Note. Each item is marked on a 4-point scale ranging from not at alllike me to a great deallike me.

was the case with the Com Q, the Tension scale correlated the most negatively of
the four RSS scales with the SSQ Number score (rs = - .35 and - .33 for males
and females, respectively).
The third individual difference measure with which the RSS was correlated
was a spedally constructed, slightly shortened version of the Thought Occur-
rence Questionnaire (TOQ) (Sarason, Sarason, Keefe, Hayes, & Shearin, 1986).
The TOQ asks subjects to rate the frequency with which task-irrelevant thoughts
generally occur while they work on various types of tasks. The 5-point rating
scale extends from never to very often. Examples of TOQ items are, "I think about
how poody I am doing"; "I think about what someone will think of me"; "I think
about how hard it is."
The correlation of the RSS score (summing over its 40 items) with the TOQ
was .44 for males and .53 for females. Every item on the TOQ was correlated
significantly and positively with the RSS's scores, reflecting the tendency to
experience task-irrelevant thoughts in sodal situations. It may weIl be that task-
irrelevant thinking plays as detrimental role in sodal behavior as it does in test-
taking situations. In this shortened version of the TOQ, 22 of the 28 items
correlated significantly with the RSS Tension scale, and 24 of the correlations
with the RSS Worry scale were significant.
These findings using the RSS are only small first steps in spedfying the
relationships among dimensions of sodal behavior, personality and cognitive
characteristics. They are presented here because it is possible that a multidimen-
sional approach to sodal behavior will provide an empiricallybased vocabulary
that reduces some of the semantic disagreements surrounding such terms as
shyness and social anxiety.
Arecent study by Schwarzer and Quast (1985) replicated the results pre-
sented above with German university students. In another study, C. Schwarzer
(1986) provided replication evidence for both German and Turkish school chil-
dren. These researchers suggested that when stressful events occur in either
sodal or academic situations, people will shift their attention from task to seH in
the process of assessing their competence and likely outcomes. If competence
and likely outcomes are perceived as being insuffident or inadequate, the situa-
tion will be appraised as threatetüng, and the individual will experience anxiety.
There may also be a degree of resignation, the result of which would be that the
TEST ANXIETY 493

individual does not invest enough effort and persistence in the task or in the
sodal interaction, thus increasing the probability of ultimate failure (Carver,
Peterson, Follansbee, & Scheier, 1983; Slapion & Carver, 1981).
In conc1usion, our goal in this chapter has been to suggest the mechanisms
by which test anxiety impacts performance and how this knowledge may lead to
effective intervention strategies. We have argued that these same approaches
can be useful in dealing with sodal anxiety. Finally, we have discussed a number
of testing instruments that have proven useful in assessing the components of
anxiety and in enhandng our understanding of the processes by which anxiety
affects performance under stress.

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