Test Anxiety and Test Performance: Comparing Paper‐based and Computer‐adaptive Versions of the Gre General Test

Abstract

AcknowledgmentsI'm thankful for the assistanceand advice providedby numerous people during the conduct of this study, among them were:• Rob Durso for invaluable assistance and encouragement throughout the course of the study • Ruth Yoder for assuming major administrative responsibility for a variety of aspects of the study • Laura Jerry for providing the data analyses on which the results are based• Holly Knott for her work on computerizing the anxiety inventories (although we were unfortunately unableto use them in the current study), as well as others who assisted us with various aspects of the project as originally designed, including:• StefBogdan• Lenora Green• Tim Habick • Kellie Macrae• Denise Nevrincean • Manfred Steffen • Laurie Van Sant• Ron Biava, PankajaNarayanan, and Gordon Scheidell for retrievingtest score records• Joi Bracy-Strachnfor providing additional information from GRE files• Brent Bridgeman, Maria Potenza, and Larry Stricker for providinghelpful reviews of an earlier draft. AbstractDespite some assumptions to the contrary, there is reason to believe that the introduction of computer-adaptive testing may actually help to alleviate test anxiety and diminish the relationship between test anxiety and test performance, This study provided a test of this hypothesis, Results are based on a sample ofGRE General Test takers who took the computer-adaptive version of the test, and another sample ofGRE examinees who took the paper-based version ofthe test. After taking the test, all examinees completed both a test anxiety inventory and an inventory concerning attitudes toward computers. Relationships were examined between performance on each ofthe three GRE General Test measures and reports of test anxiety (both worry and emotionality) and computer attitudes (both anxiety and confidence). For both the test anxiety and the computer attitudes scales, the relationship to GRE scores was similar for the computer-adaptive and paper-based GRE General Test. Thus, there was no support for the study's major hypothesis. Several ancillary findings, however, do have implications for large-scale testing programs, especially those moving to computer-based testing. (''The Search," 1994).It is a system thatcannot helpbut tofluster test-takers (Morrow, 1997).The Bad News?Ifthey are any indicationwhatsoever of popular sentiment, these media pronouncements make it clear that not everyone is equallyenthusiastic about the advent of large-scale computer-basedtesting and the opportunitiesthat it enables. The view expressed in the first statement --that computerizedtesting will automatically heighten anxiety -is held, undoubtedly, not just by the Newsweek writer who made the assertion when reporting recent changes in the College Board's admissions testing program. The conjecture is not surprising, perhaps,given previous estimatesthata significant proportionof adults may endure aversive reactions to computer-related technology (Rosen & Maguire, 1990;Weil, Rosen, & Sears, 1987). Whether such estimatesare still accuratetoday is...

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