CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the study

This chapter presents the background of the study, the statement of the problem, the objective of the study, research questions, significance of the study, justification of the study, scope, and delimitations of the study, and operational definition of terms.

Test anxiety over the years has been a serious problem to learners’ performances in school. Students usually pay attention in class, take notes in detail, read every chapter in their books, attend extra classes or tutorials, do all their assignments, study hard and then they think they have a grip over the material, all this is to perform greatly during a test or an exam yet when the day of the test or exam comes, a student suddenly feels blank, or feel so nervous that they cannot get it together to respond to those questions they knew the answers well just so before. If this experience sounds familiar, then you might be suffering from what is known as test anxiety.

It is pretty normal to feel a little nervous and stressed before a test or an examination just as everyone does and a touch of nervous anticipation can actually help you and keep you at peak performance while you are taking the test, but the nervousness students or learners feel before a test can be so strong that it interferes with their concentration or performance.

Test anxiety varies considerably from one person to another. Some people might feel like they have ‘butterflies’ in their stomachs while others might find it difficult to concentrate on the test. Others may experience a heartbeat and a sense of shakiness. In the most severe cases, people can feel nervous and short of breath.

Test anxiety is not the same as doing poorly in a certain test or examination because your mind is on something else. Most people know that having other things on their minds such as a breakup or the dead of someone close can also interfere with students’ concentration and prevent them from doing their test or preparing for it.

Learners are expected to perform or succeed well after preparing for a test or examination but most of them fail not because they did not know but just because of the anxiety before and during tests, it affects their performance.

The most common causes of test anxiety are said to be people who worry a lot or who are perfectionists and students who are not prepared for tests but care about doing well. Though test anxiety keeps increasing in the test process, others still find their test anxiety dropping and giving them away to think appropriately.

According to Mandler and Seymour Sarason [1950], highly test anxious students score about twelve percentile points below their low anxiety peers; Test anxiety is prevalent amongst student populations of the world. It is in this light that the researcher seeks to investigate the impact of test anxiety on students’ academic achievement.

Statement Of The Problem

To meet the challenge of higher education standards and higher expectations in education, test anxiety issue on students’ performance has to be treated appropriately. In other words, for the teaching-learning process to be completed, there must be a valid and reliable measurement assessment and evaluation of learners which justifies the uses of tests.

Although most often teachers or instructors together with learners try to always cover all the content or syllabus in each subject or course and provide all the facilities such as teaching aids or instructional materials, but no matter how the student masters the subject content, if the issue of test anxiety is not reduced, performance will be low and will affect students achievement. This study set out to investigate the effect of test anxiety on students’ academic achievement.

Purpose Of The Study

The purpose of this study was;

To examine the impacts of test anxiety on students’ academic achievement.

Specific Objectives

The specific objectives of the study were:

1. To examine students’ attitudes towards tests.
2. To find out students’ mastery of subjects and test anxiety.
3. To investigate the relationship between students and teachers and test anxiety.
4. To find out how test anxiety can be reduced in students.

Main Research Question

What is the impact of test anxiety on students’ academic achievement?

Specific Research Questions

1. What are the causes of test anxiety in students?
2. How does test anxiety affect the behavior of students?
3. How can test anxiety be reduced in students?