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THE EFFECT
OF EDUCATION ANXIETY ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF STUDENTS IN TERTIARY
INSTITUTIONS
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Education
transforms individuals into problem solvers who evince knowledge and are
capable of utilizing the acquired knowledge to provide solutions to a wide
range of problems. A good level of education confers on a student a
corresponding high level of meta cognitive skills which in turn helps the
student to have a good knowledge of himself as a cognitive processor, and
knowledge of task and strategy variables necessary for effective learning (Hoe,
Cheong and Yee, 2013).
However,
sometimes, some students even at high educational level and with high level of
meta cognitive skills inexplicably fail to demonstrate the knowledge they have
acquired during teaching and learning sessions. Such students attend classes,
do their assignments but fail to perform in the day of reckoning (examinations)
especially when the stakes are high. The students who have done all that is
necessary but develop cold feet rather than confidence during examinations may
be manifesting test anxiety.
Examination
anxiety which is also called test anxiety in research literature is an
uneasiness or apprehension experienced before, during and after examination
because of concern, worry or fear of uncertainty. It was defined by Zeidner
(2008) as a set of phenomenological, physiological and behavioural responses
that accompany concern about possible negative consequences or failure on an
examination or similar evaluative situation. It is feeling that someone might
have in a situation where performance really counts or where the pressure to do
well is intense.
Test anxiety
is not entirely bad. In fact a low level of test anxiety is normal and
necessary among the students in order to maintain focus and to galvanize them
into action preparing, plotting and perfecting strategies that will guarantee
optimum success in the examinations. It is needed to motivate and help the
students to stay mentally and physically alert (Birjandi and Alemi, 2010).
However,
when the anxiety or level of arousal exceeds that optimal level, the result is
decline in performance. Hence the individual fails to fulfill the required
obligation (15). Anxiety is an intrinsic part of human nature and if we learn
why something happen it usually becomes less frightening (19). Psychologist
made a distinction between two basic types pf copying strategies which includes
problem fixed strategies and emotion focused strategy (32). Problem focused
strategy attempts to deal with those aspects of environment that are
responsible for stern and anxiety expression, that is dealing directly with the
stress situation while emotion focused strategy tends to change the way a
person thinks about a stressful situation.
It is when
anxiety is in its severe form that some students experience genuine problem in
academics. Their minds go blank, they experience the shakes, their hands go
numb and they suffer from number of sudden disabilities associated with anxiety
during examination. Academic performance is the outcome of education. It refers
to the extent to which a known to be influenced by anxiety. (15) reported tat anxiety
can occur as a result of stress, affecting learning and memory and also
affecting academic performance negatively. According to (20) an optimal level
of stress can enhance ability and improve academic performance.
Test anxiety
or performance anxiety is common in nearly every aspect of human endeavour.
Excellent players have deprived their countries or clubs of the opportunities
to lift trophies during club or international sporting competitions by missing
penalty shots as a result of performance anxiety.
A study
conducted by DeCaro, Thomas, Albert and Beilock (2011) found that baseball
players put into a high pressure condition had increased errors and decreased
ability to recall details like directions in which their bats were moving. Some
candidates seeking for jobs find it difficult to remember even their own names
during interviews for highly paid jobs in such a situation where good
performance counts and pressure to do well is palpable (Putwain, Woods and
Symes, 2010). It is performance anxiety that makes a professor seat profusely
and sounds incoherent almost at the point of collapsing while presenting
inaugural lecture with intimidating audience in attendance.
In contrast
to fear, anxiety involves a more general or diffused emotional reaction beyond
simple fear – that is not of proportion to threats from the environment (2).
Anxiety is defined by (33) and (1) as a complex psychological and behavioural
state. (16) opined that anxiety, an emotional state of a human during life is
both life-saving and also causes problems in the mental life of human beings.
Humans have to always express inner struggles with different words, moods,
feelings and emotions. Therefore in terms of the internal struggles, man uses
expressions such as anxiety or worry. Anxiety is the most important factor of
mental disorders based on the theory of psychological analysis. Freud called
anxiety “emotional pain”. This means the same as if the body suffered from
injury, inflammation and disease. Anxiety according to (21) is the price paid
for civilization. (24), maintained that students’ stress is an unavoidable
phenomenon which is often seen in the undergraduates identified such factors as
physical, mental, family, job and social relationship as contributing to stress
in these students which they noted can affect their academic performances
negatively.
Anxiety
surrounding examination and other specific situations affects approximately 25%
to 40% of individuals (6), (9), (26), (33) with more females than males being
affected. Anxiety interferes with school functioning only when an abnormal
level is affected. Anxiety interferes with school functioning only when an
abnormal level is reached, where as within normal range, being anxious does not
automatically imply worst school functioning and indeed may to a certain extent
be motivating and enhancing to academic performance (25). (10), ranked anxiety
into four levels: mild, moderate, severe and panic anxiety.
Mild level
of anxiety is healthy, at this level, perceptual field is heighten, pupils
dilate to accommodate much light, hearing and smelling intensified and sense of
touch is highly sensitive. The individual is highly alert and attentive and
learning and cognition is in its best state. This stage improves academic
performance.
Moderate
level of anxiety on the other hand is unhealthy, the perceptional field of a
person at this level is narrowed; individuals experiencing this level of
anxiety have selective inattention. They have decreased focus and automatism
can be observed as repetitive purposeless movements such as shaking of hands
and feet, twirling of hair and tapping of fingers. Academic performance at this
level depends on the individual’s ability to control the anxiety and carry out
the assignment task.
Severe level
of anxiety is characterized by reduced perceptual field and a difficulty in
communication. Gross motor movements, such as pacing are characteristic of
people at this stage. Academic performance at this stage depends on the
educator’s ability to recognize such individuals and provide a safe environment
for them. Communication should be kept short and simple since communication is
altered. Performance at this stage is reduced since most educators may not be
able to provide such environment for the student.
Panic level
of anxiety is the worst and most severe form of anxiety. Total disruption of
perceptual field is present. It is also characterized by loss of ability to
communicate, loss of rational thought and total loss of conscious thinking.
Academic performance at this level is very poor since the student will be
unable to remember exactly what he/she is supposed to do.
Academic
Performance of Students
Academic
performance is a term used to describe the rating of a student following an
examination. This is an important aspect of student’s life and is known to be
influenced by various factors including anxiety and level of hard
work/preparations done prior to the examination, (11). (30) opined that
academic performance is measured by the standing rates of grades of students in
every subject and students have their own attitude towards learning and
achieving a high level of academic performance. In order for a student to
succeed he needs to be armed with strategies and techniques that will
supplement his desire to reach his goals. One way is to have an efficient and
adaptive study habit free of anxiety. (31) stated that academic performance of
nursing students can be determined by various academic and non-academic factors
that include measures of previous academic performance such as college and high
school grade point (GPA), scores of different aptitude tests and certain
demographic characteristics such as age, gender, marital status, ethnicity,
residential background and previous work experience. Furthermore, knowledge about
predictors of academic performance help in developing strategies to facilitate
students’ success in nursing education programmes and ensuring adequate
training and provision of man power in the nursing profession (3), (13).
The effect
of anxiety on academic performance as revealed by (11) is not always obvious
and new research funded by the (8) suggests that there may be hidden costs. The
research found that anxious individual find it harder to avoid distractions and
take more time to turn their attention from one task to the next than their
less anxious peers.
They further
stated that a lot of negative effects of anxiety appear to be caused by
difficulties with controlling attention. This suggest that training techniques
designed to enhance attention, control the ability of students to ignore
distractions and prevent the switching of their attention from one task to
another could help anxious students to achieve their academic potential. Also
showed that anxious individuals often perform at a comparable level to
non-anxious ones but only do so at a greater cost in terms of effort or perhaps
long term stress. This implies that it is important that teachers focus not
only on whether a student’s academic performance seems to be satisfactory but
also on how much effort the student had to put in to achieve that level of
success. Anxious students may be trying desperately hard just to keep pace with
academic demands and this could be at great psychological cost.
Anxiety and
Academic performance of students.
Anxiety symptoms are extremely common in childhood and
adolescence and can negatively interfere with general well-being, social life,
academic performance and development of social skills. (25) stated that anxiety
symptoms are associated with impairment of memory and cognitive functions and
can contribute to poor school performance and academic failure. Anxiety as
illustrated by (29), plays important roles in our lives. These include
immediate reaction to stimuli following onset, anticipation and being prepared
for important events in the future. It may be unpleasant, but it is often
adaptive and in its absence one may have trouble as life becomes difficult to
organize.
They further
pointed out that anxiety can disrupt our lives if it becomes maladaptive.
However, (18) explained that the consequences of anxiety during test or
examination may limit the educational or vocational development and promotion
through the educational system. It is normal for a student to feel anxious
before a test or examination, but it becomes problematic when the level of
anxiety is excess. (26) opined that a variety of factors can contribute to a
student’s level of anxiety, examples include: past experience with courses,
perception of course load, their ability to manage time, family issues and
beliefs, which may have been shaped by a complex interplay of factors, may
result to a unique reaction to a situation and lead to anxiety. The negative
effects of anxiety can be explained by two models namely; the interference and
the Learning Deficit Models. According to the interference model, anxious
students are distracted due to task irrelevant cognitions and negative thoughts
during examinations, while the learning deficit model proposes that it is
student’s ineffective study habits during preparation for an examination that
causes them to be anxious. Researchers found that anxious individuals find it
harder to avoid distractions and take more time to turn their attention from
one task to the next than their less anxious peers. This makes learning,
reading, remembering and writing difficult affecting academic performance.
Since, the anxious individuals perform at a comparable level to the non-anxious
ones with a greater cost in terms of effort or perhaps long term stress; it is
believed that students with high anxiety as well as those with moderate levels
of anxiety will perform the best (7). (15), maintained that if an individual’s
experience is negative, then anxiety level will be higher, leading to lower
academic performance. Consequently, if an individual’s experience is positive,
then the anxiety level will be lower leading to higher academic performance.
From these investigations, it has been observed that high and lower levels of
anxiety is related to poor academic performance while a moderate level of
anxiety is related to optimum academic performance. Reported that chronic
anxiety has a detrimental effect on academic success, every individual
experience anxiety, although it most often ensues when the individual is
uncertain about an outcome. (7) observed that about 30% of student nurses
suffer from anxiety especially in specific situations including: test,
examination and presentations. According to (4) the unfavourable effects of
anxiety experienced by nursing students leads to the development of low self
esteem over a period of time which adversely affects their academic
performance.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Today in
Nigeria, as in other parts the world, performance at examination is the
yardstick for measuring, judging and selecting manpower, and for assessing
students for promotion and the award of certificates. It is little wonder then
that many students of tertiary institutions have anxiety particularly during
examination and this has adversely affected their performance, this is because
of the much emphasis laid on examination in schools and by job-offering agents
of the society that students become convince that sustenance of life depends on
their performance in examinations. They therefore cultivate fear of failures. Because
of this failure, they resort to cheating during examinations, some even become
involved in certificate racketeering and this attitude towards examination is a
major element of the indiscipline of the wider society.
In Tertiary
Institutions, clinical symptoms of test anxiety are made manifest when students
start having abnormal rapid heart beats, sweating palms or body, shivering and
spilling their ink during examination. There have been also cases of students
going insane or collapsing in examination halls because of such anxiety, this
posses a big problem to both schools and society as a whole.
1.3 Purpose of the Study
Having taken
cognizance of the nature of the problem posed by examination anxiety, the
purpose of this study is therefore to:
Find out the
effect of examination anxiety on the performance of student of tertiary
institution (University).
Identify the
causes of anxiety over examination among students.
To ascertain
the extent of this anxiety on the students’ performance since anxiety is a
psychological problem.
1.4 Research Question
The current
research explore the following research questions:-
What are the
effects of examination anxiety on the performance of University students?
What are the
causes of anxiety over examinations among tertiary institutions?
To what
extent is anxiety on the students’ performance?
1.5 Statement of Hypothesis
The
following null hypothesis were tested in this study:
Ho1: There
is no significant predictive effect of examination anxiety on the academic performance
of students.
Ho2: There
is significant relationship between students’ examination anxiety and their
academic performance.
Ho3: There
is no significant difference in the academic performance of high and low
academic anxiety groups of male and female students.
1.6 Significance of the Study
The work of
assessing students’ learning is complex. In order to assess their work objectively,
teachers and instructors use various methods and instruments, one of which is
testing. We are aware that nowadays testing has become an inherent part of the
society we live in. we are tested in order to drive a car, to practice a trade
or profession, and to gain admission into schools. Consequently, many important
discussions are based on test results. So, it is not surprising that anxiety
during test has become a prominent problem in schools all over the world. The
present study focuses primarily on test anxiety and its effects on academic
performance of students in tertiary institutions, as well as its causes and
impacts.
The findings
of this empirical study have implications for helping professionals and
academia in addressing the menace of test anxiety of the test students in
higher education so that timely and effectively counseling and therapeutic
interventions could be introduced in colleges and universities.
1.7 Scope of the Study
This present
study covers the students of only one institution, namely the faculty of
education and Arts and Social Science, in Taraba State University, Jalingo.
Secondly, the study is limited to the subjects variables such as sex, grade and
achievement scores of the students. Lastly, background education is no a
variable.
1.8 Assumptions
The
researcher believes that the students are normally affected by test anxiety,
before but especially during the administration of test. Moreover, anxiety
affects motivations, concentrations and achievement negatively, increases
errors during the exams, creates problems recalling the material previously
learned and prevents efficient study.
1.9 Operational Definition of Terms
Test Anxiety
Inventory (TAI): Is a copyrighted instrument to measure test anxiety level of
an individual.
Academic
Performance: In Educational institutions, success is measured by academic
performance or how well a student meets standards set out by the local
government and the institution itself.
Anxiety: Is a kind of anxiety which is related
to the impending danger from the environment of the academic institution
including teacher in certain subjects like Mathematics, English etc
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