Effects of test-wiseness training on test anxiety,locus of control and reading achievement in elementary school children

Abstract

Fifth and sixth grade children were randomly assigned to either a control or an experimental condition in a pretest, posttest, delayed posttest design. The experimental group received instruction and practice in test-taking, and the control group received a placebo treatment. Dependent variables were four components of test anxiety, locus of control and achievement. Factor analysis of pretest data supported I. Sarason's four-factor conceptualization of test anxiety (worry, test-irrelevant thinking, tension, and bodily reactions to test taking). Posttest data generally supported the hypothesized treatment effects. As predicted, children in the experimental condition had higher reading scores, greater internality, and less test-irrelevant thinking. The delayed posttest scores indicated a diminished effect on the achievement and internality measures; however, the amount of test-irrelevant thinking remained lower in the experimental condition.     

Effects of decisional control and work orientation on persistence in preventive health behavior

Examined persistence in the daily use of fluoride mouthrinse among adolescents as a function of an induced-choice manipulation concerning self-management strategies and freedom to participate in the program. Seventh-grade boys and girls from urban and suburban schools were randomly assigned to a series of either high- or low-choice decisional control manipulations; their daily, home use of fluoride was monitored over a 20-week period. In order to ameliorate the relatively lower persistence rates found previously among suburban (vs. urban) students, all students were given self-management and action instructions as per previous studies. Although suburban students still declined in persistence relative to urban students, female students who received high choice persisted at a higher rate than girls who received low choice. Boys, for the most part, were unaffected by the manipulation. In addition, students' self-reported work orientation was also positively associated with persistence.     

Effects of state anxiety on performance using a task-switching paradigm: An investigation of attentional control theory

Low- and high-anxious participants performed arithmetical tasks under task-switching or nontask-switching conditions. These tasks were low or high in complexity. The task on each trial was either explicitly cued or not cued. We assumed that demands on attentional control would be greater in the task-switching condition than in the nontask-switching condition, and would be greater with high-complexity tasks than with low-complexity ones. We also assumed that demands on attentional control would be greater when cues were absent rather than present. According to attentional control theory (Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, 2007), anxiety impairs attentional control processes required to shift attention optimally within and between tasks. We predicted that there would be greater negative effects of high state anxiety in the task-switching condition than in the nontask-switching condition. Our theoretical predictions were supported, suggesting that state anxiety reduces attentional control.     

Effects of four psychological primary colors on anxiety state.

Effects of the four psychological primary colors were assessed by randomly assigning 40 undergraduates (13 male, 27 female) to 4 treatment groups, with each group receiving either red, yellow, green, or blue illumination. Anxiety state was assessed at 5-min. intervals using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. The red and yellow groups had significantly higher A-state scores than the blue and green groups, and these values did not change significantly during the 15-min. testing session.     

Relationships between locus of control, trait anxiety, and state anxiety: an interactionist perspective.

This study examined the relationships among generalized expectancy for internal or external control, situational expectancy of control over aversive stimuli, trait anxiety level, and state anxiety reactivity. Seventy-two male subjects, selected from the upper and lower halves of the distributions of scores from the I-E and STAI A-Trait Scales, were randomly assigned to one of three conditions of expectancy of control over electric shock. Repeated measures of state anxiety were taken at three points in the experiment, and subjects were asked to rate the degree of control they expected to have in avoiding shocks. Results, based upon analyses of variance, were interpreted as strongly supportive of the use of the interactionist model in understanding the manner in which personality trait and situational variables interact in the determination of subject expectancies of control and anxiety reactivity.     

Selective attention for masked and unmasked threatening words in anxiety: Effects of trait anxiety, state anxiety and awareness

We investigated the effects of awareness on selective attention for masked and unmasked verbal threat material using a computerised version of the emotional Stroop. Participants were assigned to the high trait anxious (HTA) and low trait anxious (LTA) groups on the basis of questionnaire scores, and state anxiety was manipulated within participants through the threat of electric shock. To investigate the effects of awareness on responses to threat, the mode of exposure was blocked such that half the participants received masked trials before the unmasked trials, whereas the other half received the reverse order. The results revealed that there was no difference between the HTA and LTA groups in responses to threat for those who received the masked trials before the unmasked trials. However, when unmasked trials were presented before the masked trials HTA individuals were significantly slower to respond to both masked and unmasked threat words compared to the LTA group, and these effects were not further modified by participants' state anxiety status. The results are discussed in terms of the automatic nature of threat processing in anxiety.     

The effect of state anxiety on the online and offline control of fast target-directed movements

In target-directed aiming, afferent information is used to adjust limb trajectories during movement execution (i.e. online) and to enhance the programming of subsequent trials (i.e. offline). The objective of the present study was to determine the influence of state anxiety on both online and offline afferent information processing for the first time. Participants practiced either a directional aiming task (Experiment 1) or an amplitude aiming task (Experiment 2) without anxiety before being transferred to a high anxiety condition. In both experiments, results revealed that anxiety resulted in a decrement in performance. Furthermore, use of afferent information to adjust movement trajectories online was disrupted when movements were performed with anxiety, whereas there were no differences in the offline processing of afferent information between the low anxiety and high anxiety conditions.