Personality and Test Anxiety of School Students

Authors: [1] Senthil Kumaran J [2] Dr. S. Kadhirava

Pages: 9-13

Abstract:

Present-day students experience a cut-throat competition at all levels of education. They have been sensitized well in home and school to excel at all academic pursuits. Further, Teachers as well as parents exert their own influence on the academics of students. In these circumstances, students generally become anxious and unable to perform up to their fullest potential. It is understood from researches that ‘test anxiety’ is an important construct which influence the academic success of a student. Personality being the dynamic organization, not only determine the nature of our general behaviour but also our behaviour at each and every places which ultimately would aid in dealing with test anxiety. The present study tries to explore the relationship between test anxiety and personality of school students since it is a crucial stage.128 students from ninth standard in Salem educational district were selected through stratified random sampling and the data was collected through survey. Fried-Ben test anxiety scale and Big five locator were utilized for collecting data. Results revealed that the negative emotionality dimension of personality is significantly correlated with all the dimensions of test anxiety and some significant inverse correlations are found between the rest of personality factors and test anxiety. It is also found that students differ in their test anxiety on the basis of gender and type of family they belong to. It is suggested from the findings that the school authorities and psychologists should consider these relationships and differences while alleviating test anxiety among school students.