Both the ACT and the PET assume that anxiety-related deficits primarily affect efficiency, but not effectiveness. According to Spielberger (1972), trait test anxiety refers to an individual's disposition to perceive test situations as threatening and to respond to such threats with state anxiety (i.e., transient feelings of negative arousal). Efficiency is defined as effectiveness divided by effort and can be measured by accuracy divided by response time (Hoffman, 2012).ĭespite the extensive literature on test anxiety and cognitive performance, an issue that remains unresolved is the relative contributions of trait test anxiety versus state anxiety to cognitive performance. Effectiveness refers to the quality of task performance and is primarily measured by response accuracy. Both theories make a distinction between performance effectiveness and processing efficiency. Although both theories are focused on general trait and state anxiety, they have been applied to test anxiety (Eysenck et al., 2007, p. Our present investigation of the effects of test anxiety on cognitive performance is guided by two theoretical frameworks: the attentional control theory (ACT Eysenck et al., 2007) and the processing efficiency theory (PET Eysenck & Calvo, 1992). These findings indicate that test anxiety can potentially jeopardize the validity of examination results because test-anxious individuals do not perform as well as their ability would otherwise allow (Zeidner, 1990). Within the school context, test anxiety correlates negatively with performance on aptitude and achievement measures (Hembree, 1988, Ma, 1999).

The negative relation between anxiety and task performance is well-documented in children and adults (e.g., Eysenck et al., 2007, Owens et al., 2012, Owens et al., 2014).

State trait anxiety test