•  
  •  
 

Archives of Assessment Psychology

Abstract

High school and college students can struggle with test anxiety, which may result in test scores below the capacity of the student. Previous literature suggests that test anxiety is related to general anxiety and limited working memory (WM), yet the extent to which these factors predict test anxiety in commonly used clinical psychoeducational assessments has not been thoroughly examined. In this study, we examined how well scores on the Behavior Assessment System for Children- 3rd edition (BASC-3) Self-Report Anxiety scale and Working Memory Index (WMI) on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale – Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV), Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children – Fifth Edition (WISC-V), or Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Cognitive Abilities (WJ-IV COG) predicted clinically significant test anxiety. We analyzed archived data from 90 middle-school, high-school, and college students who presented to a university-based psychological assessment clinic. The results of this study showed that the Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC-3) Anxiety scores and WMI scores significantly and accurately predicted clinically significant test anxiety scores. To better understand misclassified cases, we conducted a detailed analysis of the 11 false-positive (FP) and 6 false-negative (FN) cases obtained. We found that the FP cases often involved individuals with comorbid attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum traits, and depression, which raised their overall anxiety and lowered their working memory without resulting in clinically significant test anxiety. Meanwhile, the FN cases were mostly associated with academic learning and attentional challenges that caused anxiety in specific testing situations, which was not entirely captured by general anxiety or WM assessments.

Download

Share

COinS