The psychometric properties of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAIC) and relationships between STAIC T-Anxiety scores and standardized measures of achievement were determined for 948 kindergarten and first- and second-grade children. The T-anxiety scores of kindergarten children were lower than those of first- and second-graders. Internal consistency of the STAIC scales was higher in individual testing sessions than in small group administrations. Small but significant negative correlations were found between STAIC T-Anxiety scores and measures of school achievement. It was concluded that the STAIC is a potentially useful measure of state and trait anxiety in kindergarten through sixth-grade children, but it must be administered individually at the kindergarten and first-grade levels.

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The STAIC was administered to 1,522 third and fourth grade Black disadvantaged children from a large metropolitan school district. Although A-State scores were equivalent to the original normative sample. A-Trait levels for boys and girls were found to be higher. Similar alpha coefficients were observed for the A-State scale; the A-Trait scale yielded slightly lower alpha coefficients than the original sample. Norms for the STAIC scales were extended to the third grade level. The small differences between the present study and the original normative study were attributed to differences in population. The STAIC provides a valid and reliable means to measure trait and state anxiety in children of elementary school age.

Anxiety and performance on concrete and abstract mathematics tests were evaluated for first and second graders assigned to individualized multiage programs (IMP) and traditional learning environments (TRAD). The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAIC) was used to measure anxiety. Lower trait and state anxiety was associated with the IMP program, and anxiety-reducing effects were greater for second graders. High A-Trait first graders performed more poorly than low A-Trait first graders. Although IMP first graders were lower in A-Trait than THAU children, they did not differ in performance. For second graders, the IMP environment facilitated the performance of high A-Trait children, but resulted in poorer performance for low A-Trait children.