Anxiety level and performance on the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task, the Aural Sequential Paced Arithmetic Test and the Visual Sequential Arithmetic Test

The effects of test anxiety, age, intelligence level, and arithmetic ability on Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test performance

This study investigated the effects of test anxiety, intelligence, arithmetic ability, and age on the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT) performance of 45 participants ages 16 to 54. Level of anxiety as measured by a short form measure of state anxiety and retrospective report during the PASAT appeared to have no significant effect on performance. Intelligence and arithmetic ability, however, together accounted for 46% of the variance on PASAT scores. Although no significant correlation was found between PASAT performance and age, those over 26 years of age performed significantly better on the 2.0 second paced presentation.